Michelle Obama Recalls Daughter Malia’s Request on Prom Night: ‘Just Be Cool, Please?’
Michelle Obama’s new memoir Becoming shares several personal moments from her family life with Barack Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, and in a newly revealed passage, the former first lady spills on what it was like to let their oldest daughter go to prom in 2015.
According to an excerpt in People, when Malia was 16, the then-high schooler informed her parents she had been asked to prom by a boy she liked. While the Obama girls were not permitted to ride in cars with anyone other than the secret service, the president and first lady made an exception for this one special occasion.
“On the appointed evening, her date arrived in his car,” Michelle recalled. Malia’s “embarrassment [had] already [begun] to smolder as we rode the elevator downstairs,” she continued. “I was barefoot, and Barack was in flip-flops. Malia wore a long black skirt and an elegant bare-shouldered top. She looked beautiful and about twenty-three years old.”
It was at this time that Malia pulled the most relatable teen move ever, asking her parents to “just be cool please, okay?” Michelle said that to this day, her oldest daughter recalls the night as “a bit excruciating,” but that overall, she and Barack managed to honor her daughter’s request, keeping with their attempts to make sure their daughters lived as normally as possible during their time in the White House with their parents.
Michelle also opened up about other aspects of her family life in a recent interview with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts, including that she suffered a miscarriage when trying to conceive 20 years ago. “I felt lost and alone and I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them,” she said. “I think it’s the worst thing that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies and how they work and how they don’t work.”
Becoming is available in stores now.
Did you relate to Michelle’s story about Malia’s prom night? Let us know @BritandCo.
(photo via Mark Wilson/Getty Images)