The Strangest Thing Michelle Obama Experienced After The White House Isn't What You'd Think

When Michelle and Barack Obama handed The White House over to Donald Trump in 2017, the former first lady tried very hard to put on a brave face. "I didn't want to have tears in my eyes because people would swear I was crying because of the new president," she explained to reporters in the aftermath (via USA Today). The real reason Michelle was emotional was because she had to say goodbye to all of the staff-members who had become like family during her husband's eight years in office. These people not only looked after them, but actively helped raise Michelle and Barack's daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama. Of course, conceding their home to someone like Trump wasn't exactly easy either. 

"To sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represented on display — there was no diversity, there was no color on that stage, there was no reflection of the broader sense of America," Michelle later sadly recalled of his inauguration ceremony, on her "The Light Podcast" (via The Guardian). When the Obamas left The White House for the very last time, the former first lady finally let the tears flow once she was in the privacy of Air Force One. "When those doors shut, I cried for 30 minutes straight, uncontrollable sobbing, because that's how much we were holding it together for eight years," she acknowledged. 

Michelle Obama's life changed significantly after leaving The White House. She suddenly found herself with more free time on her hands — and limited closet space. The former first lady joked that her youngest daughter, Sasha Obama, made sure to grab the best room in the house, with poor Barack Obama having hardly any space to store his things. "[Barack] got so shortchanged on this whole deal," Michelle confessed in a 2018 interview with Ellen DeGeneres (via Today). "He doesn't have enough closet space. Sorry. He's got the smallest room for his office."

Aside from sharing smaller quarters with her family, Michelle found something else incredibly weird — having a doorbell. "I have a door and a doorbell and people actually trip out when I come to my door and I open it," she explained. Likewise their dogs, Bo and Sunny, had no idea what to make of it at first. "[They] don't know what a doorbell is, so the doorbell rings and they're like 'I've never heard that before,'" Michelle quipped. All things considered, though, life outside The White House suited the Obamas better. As she reasoned on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in 2023, "It's kind of a relief."

Michelle Obama's time in The White House ultimately managed to make her forget what normal life felt like. For eight years, she had to strategize and plan, and the former first lady even confessed that her White House hair styles were carefully tailored to please the public. So when Barack Obama's term concluded, she experienced a whole variety of conflicting emotions. "When we came back to our new home, it was odd," Michelle admitted during a 2024 episode of "The Moments That Make Us" podcast (via Hola!) "It was odd coming down a different street and parking through a different set of barricades — because we still had barricades, we still had Secret Service." 

Thus, the "Becoming" author gradually started to realize what a sheltered life she and her family had enjoyed during their eight years in The White House. Fortunately, Michelle made it a priority to ensure her daughters Malia and Sasha Obama's childhood in The White House was as normal as possible so they likely found it a little easier to transfer back into the real world. 

The girls were even tasked with doing chores in order to earn their weekly allowance. It seemed to do the trick too, with the proud mom confirming on "The Michelle Obama Podcast" in 2020, "Both Malia and Sasha have turned out to be wonderful young ladies, and very well-adjusted, given what they had to deal with right at a very important developmental point in their lives," (via Elle).