Barack Obama Shares How He Feels About Daughter Malia Dropping Her Last Name Professionally
Barack and Michelle Obama have continued to achieve lasting influence with their respective careers, and their last name rightfully holds an immense reputation. Their daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, recognize the weight their last name holds, and they have taken steps to ensure they will be able to pursue their own passions without prejudgment.
Malia, 26, even changed her credit in her directorial film debut, The Heart, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in February. She went by her middle name, with her credit reading Malia Ann. The former president recently sat down with The Pivot Podcast on Tuesday (Oct. 29) and shared his reaction to his eldest daughter’s decision.
Barack said he explained to Malia that dropping her last name won’t completely hide her identity, but his daughter responded by saying it may help with viewers’ genuine first impressions of her film. “I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,'” the 63-year-old said. “And she’s all like, ‘You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association.'”
“So I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that,” he continued. “The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all.”
The Harvard Law School alum also revealed that these decisions regarding nepotism are made very intentionally by his girls. “I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it,” he said.
Barack explained that he understands how life-changing his decision to run for President of the United States was, so he empathizes with how that has affected his family. He has worked to put the burden of the press onto himself and alleviate the pressures of the media from his wife and children as much as possible.
“Now, as they’ve gotten older, there’s been some paparazzi stuff going on, and it drives them nuts because their attitude is, ‘We’re not looking for all that.’ So they’re grounded… I basically made a deal with the press pool. I said, ‘You can follow me around. You can talk about me. You do whatever you need to do. Leave my children alone because they have the right to grow up. They didn’t choose this. Let them grow up.’ And to the credit of the press they did leave them alone,” he said.
The Heart is centered around a man grieving the death of his mother after she leaves him “an unusual request.” Watch Malia’s summary below and Barack’s The Pivot Podcast episode above.
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