Michelle Obama Talks Skipping Trump’s Inauguration And The Power Of Saying No – Essence

Former First Lady Michelle Obama is done being everything for everyone—at the expense of herself.

In a candid conversation with actress Taraji P. Henson on her podcast “IMO,” which she co-hosts with her brother Craig Robinson, Obama opened up about the emotional and personal weight behind her decision to skip President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. 

She says it wasn’t about politics—it was about peace.

“I’m trying to get better at doing what’s right for me,” Obama said, explaining that therapy has helped her begin to feel more comfortable saying “no” and embracing the idea that she has done enough.

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 “My decision to skip the inauguration, … or my decision to make choices at the beginning of this year that suited me, were met with such ridicule and criticism like people couldn’t believe that I was saying ‘no’ for any other reason that they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart.”

Baseless rumors swirled online not just after the inauguration, but also when she was absent from former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. But her absence, she explained, was deeply intentional—and deeply difficult.

“It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was right, or that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me. That was a hard thing for me to do,” she said. “I had to basically trick myself out of it, and it started with not having anything to wear.”

“I walk around with the right dress, I travel with clothes just in case something pops off,” she said. “So I was like, if I’m not going to do this thing, I gotta 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.’”

Let that sink in. 

Henson was quick to applaud her. “If she doesn’t make choices for herself, she becomes a shock absorber,” Henson said.

“And that’s what women are. We’re shock absorbers, and that’s exhausting and it’s not healthy,” Henson continued. “You’ve had to be shock absorbers for your husband, for your children, for your mom, for your family, your loved ones because of where you were sitting in the public eye. That’s not fair to you. When do you ever get to live for you?”

Obama is still figuring that out. But what she does know is that she’s now determined to model a different kind of strength for her daughters, Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23—and for all of us watching.

“If I, after all that I’ve done in this world, if I’m 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’m always setting, going high all the time even in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction, right? All I’m doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us,” she said.

She wants her daughters to build a different kind of muscle—the kind that comes from learning to say no.

“You start practicing it early,” she said. “People can handle ‘no.’ The world doesn’t stop because I said no to your event.”