Smoke and mirrors: Michelle Obama talks teen life and tabloid scrutiny with Malia and Sasha

During Barack Obama's presidency, former First Lady Michelle Obama faced the challenge of shielding her daughters, Malia Obama, 26, and Sasha Obama, 23, from tabloid scrutiny regarding their smoking habits.

In a recent interview with Kelly Ripa on SiriusXM’s "Let’s Talk Off Camera", the former First Lady shared the difficulties she encountered in keeping her daughters’ teenage experiences out of the tabloids.

The American tabloids have frequently captured Malia taking smoke breaks, often resulting in headlines. In 2016, at the age of 18, she made headlines for smoking a joint at Lollapalooza, an annual music festival in Chicago.

Her younger sister, Sasha, has also been captured by the tabloids enjoying a cigarette with her friends, and they are often scrutinised for their smoking; the tabloids even suggested they inherited the habit from their father since he used to be a smoker himself. 

For the 61-year-old mother of two, it became especially challenging to keep her daughters out of the tabloids when they entered their teenage years. 

“That was a lot of work,” she said, “And it got harder as they got older.” She recalled the various experiences her daughters had as teenagers, from driving lessons to prom, sports teams to college searches, and parties to experimenting with smoking.

“They had to drive and they had to go to prom and they were on teams and they travelled to other schools and they had to do college searches, and they went to parties and they had drinks, and they tried out smoking and they did all the things,” she said. 

“And every weekend was a nightmare, because we had to work to make sure that they, being regular teenagers, didn't wind up on Page Six,” she added.

Michelle emphasised that keeping their teen experimentations out of the spotlight required intentionality.

“When your kids are under the security of the Secret Service, you almost have to work twice as hard to make their life normal,” she continued. 

She shared that arranging simple events like playdates for her children involved significant security measures, including advance teams vetting the host’s home and inquiring whether the house had drugs and guns.

Now that Malia and Sasha are adults, their mother’s focus has shifted to helping them navigate the pressures that come with being the daughters of a former president. 

“We call that the Obama tax for them. You’ll have it the rest of your life, but you also have a lot of benefits,” she tells Kelly Ripa.

Michelle stated that she aims to help her daughters maintain a sense of normalcy and avoid developing inflated egos or believing their lives revolved around their parents’ status.