Barack Obama gave a rare insight into his relationship with his daughter Malia Obama, describing her as “stubborn” for not taking advantage of the family name.
Malia, the then 9-year old who stole America’s hearts during her dad’s 2008 presidential campaign trail, is determined to carve her own lane. The 26-year-old filmmaker made her directorial debut back in February at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival with The Heart. However the credits listed her name as Malia Ann, her first and middle name.
Former President Obama recently spoke on The Pivot Podcast where he admitted the choice didn’t come as a shock to him. “The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all,” he said about both Malia and his 23-year-old daughter Sasha. “I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it.”
When he discovered Malia had ditched Obama for a new professional name, he said he told her people would still recognize that they’re related.
“I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,’” he explained. “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.”
“Leave my children alone because they have the right to grow up.”
“Now, as they’ve gotten older, there’s been some paparazzi stuff going on, and it drives them nuts,” the former president said. “Their attitude is, ‘We’re not looking for all that.’ So they’re grounded.”
Obama said he and Michelle wanted to make sure that Malia and Sasha grew up having a normal childhood, which is why he almost didn’t run for office. However, he had made a deal with the White House press pool to ensure that his children were not bothered.
Obama said he was grateful that his offspring were able to be somewhat shielded from the stoplight during his presidency and at his request, the press focused on him.
“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.”