By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-12 18:51:42 | Updated at 2025-03-12 23:03:35
4 hours ago
'You Should Start a Podcast with Your Sibling' is the title of Michelle Obama's inaugural Spotify episode with her brother, Craig Robinson — and really, she shouldn't have.
The reasons are varied and sundry, but chief among them is her cynical decision to tease with talk of divorce.
Not the rumors of hers, of course — no, never, Michelle O is so far above that — but her brother's ancient divorce, way back in the year of our Lord 2000.
Yes: her brother's marital failure is cannon fodder for this otherwise pointless ego bath, this excruciating exercise in attempting to prove — à la Meghan Markle — that Michelle has more to offer than her marriage, which may or may not be ending.
But that topic is clearly off-limits. Relatedly, her older brother Craig, now 62 to her 61, seems a little bit afraid of her.
It's not hard to see why. Despite Michelle's guardedness — which she has always tried to deflect with ostensibly humorous anecdotes that allow her to shine while denigrating her husband (remember 'snore-y and stinky' Barack?) — we learn that she is an epic grudge-holder.
Craig can barely explain why he hid his marital troubles from Michelle — who, by the way, is 'Miche' to him but an 'icon' to us.
Truly, why are we here? To be talked down to by siblings who are still jockeying for position in the family hierarchy?
'You Should Start a Podcast with Your Sibling' is the title of Michelle Obama 's inaugural Spotify episode with her brother, Craig Robinson - and really, she shouldn't have. (Pictured: Michelle and Craig on their new podcast 'IMO').
The reasons are varied and sundry, but chief among them is her cynical decision to tease with talk of divorce. (Pictured: Barack and Michelle Obama).
Which, by the way, is a losing game, because Barack will always be Number One — perhaps the root of Michelle's apparent fury.
She is just as much of a narcissist as her husband. Here she describes her reaction to learning that her beloved, only sibling's marriage was ending.
Spoiler alert: What about her? Where did she figure in his looming divorce?
'I felt like the dude I depend on the most', Michelle tells us — cough-cough, Barack — 'who I could tell anything [sic], couldn't, didn't feel like he could come to me when he was dealing with something really hard in his life, which is his marriage falling apart.'
Instead of asking herself why that was — instead of Craig exploring that with her — he verbally prostrates himself before 'Miche'.
'That was a mistake,' he says. 'That was a mistake. And I've learned since then.'
He goes on to tell us what it's like to have such a brilliant, famous, powerful sister.
'I talked about you all the time to people, because now that you're an icon' — dear God, are these two insufferable — 'people are like, 'What's your sister like?''
Sorry, Craig: Not buying it. For one thing, the people in your rarified world, the CEOs and billionaires, have far more couth than that.
Secondly: We all know what Michelle Obama is like.
She is resentful, still, that her husband brought her and their girls into the White House, that his election made her the first black First Lady, and conferred upon her an immortality that no amount of books written or Netflix productions or podcasts launched will ever grant her.
It's Craig she thanks — not, more appropriately, her husband — for getting her through the 'hell' that was the White House.
'I could't have gotten through eight years in the White House without my big brother,' she says.
Later, she reiterates, again at Barack's expense: 'I mean, over the course of the campaign — the many campaigns —[and] our time in the White House, I could count on you to be there when I needed you.'
Yes, however did Michelle get through being adored by the nation, called the most youthful and electrifying First Lady since Jackie Kennedy, and all of us making her post-White House endeavors so successful that she and Barack are now multi-millionaires with four estates?
She would have us weep for her. Her self-interest, incredibly, has only metastasized.
Michelle, much like Meghan, would prefer to cast her husband's global fame on a funeral pyre in pursuit of cheaper iterations, be that as a cooking show host (Markle) or on a new podcast, positing herself as an agony aunt.
'You know,' Michelle says, 'we're going to be taking, you know, questions from listeners… who just need a little advice.'
Perhaps she should look inward.
Michelle is clearly still furious that Barack became president. She'll never forgive him, I think — not just for getting elected, but for being better-looking, smarter, more talented and more charismatic. He allows himself to enjoy his fame and wears it lightly.
She, however, is the opposite.
She is the grinder, the A student who does great on tests but lacks an original mind. She is the worker bee to his shining star, yet she wants to be recognized for her own talents — which, after all this time, remain unclear.
The result is poorly-concealed rage that only repels.
Michelle is resentful, still, that her husband brought her and their girls into the White House (Pictured: Barack, Malia, Michelle and Sasha Obama in 2009).
Michelle, much like Meghan (pictured), would prefer to cast her husband's global fame on a funeral pyre in pursuit of cheaper iterations, be that as a cooking show host (Markle) or on a new podcast, positing herself as an agony aunt.
Michelle — again, like Meghan — hops from project to project with diminishing returns, given chance after chance not for who she is but who she married.
Who even knew that Michelle is the executive producer of a flailing show called 'Later Daters', about older people looking for love, on Netflix?
That might be why she hasn't quashed rumors of a divorce. Perhaps it's more than strategic headline hunting — Michelle probably relishes her husband's perfect record being a little sullied.
For lack of anything better to discuss — we are not privy to the real tea, like why Michelle skipped Jimmy Carter's funeral and the Trump inauguration — she and Craig revisit, for the umpteenth time, Barack's decision to run and the epic struggle to get Michelle on board.
Who among us isn't sick of this little origin story, which dates back to 2006?
Here's a new detail: Craig did the persuading. Riveting stuff.
'I think the thing that pushed it over the top,' Craig says, 'was I convinced you not to penalize him for being really good at what he does… it's just what wouldn't be fair. And I talked to you and mom at the same time, and both of you sat there reasonably mad and said I was right.'
Reasonably mad. If there's a better description of Michelle's resting state, we have yet to hear it.
Really, that should have been the name of this sorry podcast. 'IMO' — short for 'In My Opinion' — doesn't quite capture her, does it?
'Reasonably Mad with Michelle Obama': Now that would be a podcast worth a listen.
