Former first lady Michelle Obama has revealed she sobbed on the day she left the White House, her family’s home for eight years, and made way for its next occupants, the Trumps.
Obama candidly spoke about how the White House was her family’s beloved home and how she was not in a “good mood” but had to “hold it together” during former President Donald Trump‘s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017.
In a clip of the “Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast,” which was launched on Audible Tuesday, Obama said she cried after boarding the presidential airplane Air Force One for the very last time.
“When those doors shut, I cried for 30 minutes. Straight, uncontrollable sobbing, because that’s how much we were holding it together for eight years,” she said, as quoted by Business Insider.
Obama admitted that she wasn’t in a good mood while attending Trump’s inauguration. She said being at the event was like watching “the opposite” of everything the Obamas stood for on display.
“There were tears, there was that emotion. But then to sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represented on display — there was no diversity, there was no color on that stage, there was no reflection of the broader sense of America,” Obama said.
“And many people took pictures of me and they’re like, ‘You weren’t in a good mood?’ No, I was not! But you had to hold it together, like you do for eight years,” she continued.
The former first lady also said the day was emotional because her family had to say goodbye to the staff members and leave the home they lived in for two presidential terms, according to CNN.
“After the inauguration … that day was so emotional on so many different reasons. We were leaving the home we had been in for eight years, the only home our kids really knew,” Obama recalled. “They remembered Chicago but they had spent more time in the White House than anywhere. So we were saying goodbye to the staff and all the people who helped to raise them.”
After boarding Air Force One for the very last time, Obama said she saw the turnout for Trump’s inauguration from mid-air and joked about the size of the crowd.
“You take your last flight off, flying over the Capitol, where there weren’t that many people there. We saw it,” she said.
Reuters
