Michelle Obama opens up about her first impressions of Barack Obama and the call that changed them
TheGrio...
The former First Lady didn’t shy away from what she imagined her husband to be before their first lunch together.
The love story of the Obamas has endured in the public eye for more than 30 years now. But not everything was an exact fairy tale between Barack and Michelle early on.
In an interview with Sam Fragoso for his “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso” podcast, the former First Lady opened up about how Barack serves as her Google, her feelings about the current “mess” the country is in and how no one is happy, and more. But one subject that elicited the strongest response from Fragoso was the retelling of how the Obamas actually met.
During her first year working at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin, Michelle was informed that a young, first-year Harvard Law student was applying for a summer position at the firm.
“It was rare for them to select a first-year in their program,” Michelle recalled around the 29-minute mark. “But everybody who met him, who interviewed him said, ‘Oh, he’s amazing.’ The secretary is like, ‘He’s cute,’ and he’s that, and he’s “Barack Obama.” And I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’ I get a picture, and the picture is not a great picture. I mean, it looks like he’s gone into a 7-Eleven to take his picture, right? I mean, it’s bad lighting and you know, and I was like, I don’t think he’s that cute. And I’m thinking, okay, these are white people that are flipping over an articulate Black man.”
She added, “I was like, let me just lower my expectations. And then, it was like, he was from Hawaii and I was like, whoa, what black people are in Hawaii? So I already had in my mind that this was going to be some nerdy ultraconservative, you know. I just sort of painted a picture, not an angry picture. I was just like, uh, I know what I’m getting.”
However, that unmistakable Barack charm managed to work on Michelle after their very first phone call.
“I called him first on the phone just to introduce myself and when he picked up the phone, he had that Barack Obama voice,” Michelle said with a wry smile. “That, I didn’t expect because I had already pictured him as kind of a dweeb kind of person who would be appealing to white people as a Black man.”
“He was like, ‘Hello, it’s Barack Obama.’ But I was like, ‘Whoa!’ The voice was sexy over the phone! And I was like, ‘Wow, this is Barack Obama.’ Let me look at this photo again. Hold on.”
The Obamas’ love story has been examined not only in their respective books “Becoming” and “The Audacity of Hope” but also in the film “Southside With You.” Michelle’s belief that Barack would be a “dweeb” is hilarious, considering how his life took him from Hawaii to Kansas, Illinois, and ultimately to Harvard. But that’s the thing about outdoing first impressions. Sometimes all it takes is a conversation.
Or in the case of the Obamas, a phone call and a one-of-a-kind voice.