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Former First Lady Michelle Obama is speaking out for the first time about why she didn't attend President Donald Trump's inauguration.
In January, the IMO podcast host fueled speculation about possible marital issues with former President Barack Obama after she declined to attend Trump's second inauguration. Michelle's decision came shortly after she missed late President Jimmy Carter's funeral, where she was expected to sit next to Trump.
Michelle addressed her absence from the notable events on Wednesday's (April 23) episode of her podcast with her brother, Craig Robinson, saying that she made "the choice that was right for me."
“People couldn't believe that I was saying no for any other reason; they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” Michelle said. “It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do.”
The former first lady said she had to "basically trick" herself into following through with not going to January's inauguration by ensuring she had nothing to wear to the presidential event.
"It started with not having anything to wear," Michelle said. "I was like, if I'm not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team, I don't even want to have a dress ready, right? Because it's so easy to just say let me do the right thing."
The podcast host noted that if she didn't have anything to wear to the event, then she knew she wouldn't be able to change her mind about attending.
Michelle further explained that she's working on the "art of saying no."
“It's a muscle that you have to build,” she said. “And I think we suffered, because it's almost like we started training late in life to build that muscle, right? I am just now starting to build it.”
“I want our daughters, I want the young women out there… I want my girls to start practicing different strategies for saying no,” Michelle continued. “After all that I've done in this world, if I am still showing them that I have to keep- I still have to show people that I love my country, that I'm doing the right thing, that I am always setting, going high all the time, even in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction, all I'm doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us.”
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