Let’s take a break from the morass of bad and otherwise stupid news and talk about President Barack Obama, who had a nice candid chat with People about all the ways holding the nation’s highest office can conspire to ruin your marriage.
In short, if you think covid is eating away at your relationship like a moth chews through your now-decaying office clothes, have you ever tried having a partner who is president?
“Michelle very much believed in the work I did but was less optimistic about what I could get done. ... She’s more skeptical about politics and more mindful of the sacrifices to the family,” President Obama says. (“You know I hate politics,” the former first lady said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention this past August.)
“She wouldn’t go at me for having to stay up until two or three in the morning working and reading briefing papers,” he recalls. “But, I think once it was done, there was the possibility of her opening up about how she felt. More importantly, I think, just her being able to let out a breath.”
In fact, Michelle never wanted her husband to run in the first place. In advance of his forthcoming memoir, A Promised Land, Obama told Vanity Fair that much of the book is “the story of our love and our partnership, and the sacrifices she made for the career path I chose.”
“And, needing to be honest about the fact that she really didn’t want me to be in politics, and it hurt her in a lot of ways,” he says.
Since leaving office, however, Obama says the former First Lady “has been more relaxed and more joyful,” which she certainly deserves, but also makes exactly one of us! [People]
The cover of Jennifer Lopez’s new album, In the Morning, is of her insanely ripped body against a black backdrop. Jennifer’s Insanely Ripped Body (not a movie (but should be?)) makes me feel two things: Awe (the woman is 51!) followed by a deep shame that I haven’t lifted a single weight with my noodle arms since the pandemic began 200 years ago.
Then again, if you’ve seen Hustlers this shouldn’t even be a surprise. And even though I personally will never achieve definition like this, it’s a nice antidote to the narrative that women over 45 have no option but to swaddle themselves in their own sagging jowls and tuck themselves into attics and crawl spaces like bats.
- Lorde wrote a book about Antarctica, the proceeds form which will go toward climate change research. [Vulture]
- Jillian Michaels’ feud with Andy Cohen and Al Roker is back, baby! [Page Six]
- Meghan Markle’s mom has been a major support following her miscarriage. [Us Weekly]
- Fantasia’s having a baby. [Bossip]