USA TODAY International Edition
Obama kicks off tour with Oprah
CHICAGO – Michelle Obama went back to her roots Tuesday night, taking over Chicago’s United Center for the first night of her book tour for her new memoir, “Becoming.”
A little more than 10 years to the day after igniting the city with hope on the night of the 2008 presidential election, the former first lady sat with another powerful Chicago native – Oprah Winfrey – who chose the memoir as her latest book club pick (and apparently was one of the first people to read it outside of Obama’s family). The two delved deeper into vignettes from the book, discussing everything from life in the White House and motherhood to owning her seat at the table and her relationship with her husband, Barack Obama.
Here are the most poignant moments and revelations from the first night of the book tour:
She broke down sobbing right after the 2016 inauguration
Obama revealed that the moment she boarded Marine One after the 2016 inauguration, she broke down crying.
“I didn’t write about this in the book, because I had forgotten about it . ... I think I sobbed for 30 minutes,” she said. “And I think it was just the release of eight years of trying to do everything perfectly. I said to Barack: ‘That was so hard. What we just did was so hard, and I’ve wanted to say that for eight years.’
“I saw sameness, and that was the first time it struck me that this is going to be different,” Obama said of the people on the stage at President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“And then I listened to the speech and said, ‘This is going to be really different.’”
She also said she joked about getting on the presidential plane after the inauguration, turning around and mouthing “Bye, Felicia.”
“I didn’t do it,” she said, sparking a roar of laughter from the crowd.
She talked more about her trip to marriage counseling
Obama said she went into counseling with the idea that the counselor would tell her husband to “fix himself.”
“I wanted to bring him in to have another person tell him ‘Get yourself together,’ ” she joked.
“What I learned about myself was that it’s not my partner’s job to make me happy; we have to make each other happy,” she said.
“There’s a part of me that was waiting for him to do for me, and I didn’t need him to do it, I needed it done.”
Malia and Sasha made a virtual cameo appearance
The Obama daughters, Malia, 20, and Sasha, 17, showed up to support their mom’s new book in a video before the show.
On election night in 2008, “I remember the night in Chicago; people were just so happy,” Malia said. “I think seeing other people cry and scream in a way highlighted how insane it was that that just happened.”
Said Sasha: “It’s just insane to see thousands of people in one room so excited and so inspired by one person, and that person happens to be your mom. I think I’m most excited for her to be proud of what she’s done and look at how many lives she’s touched, because I think that’s the most important thing.”
Barack Obama made a video appearance, too, talking about the first time he met Michelle. Turns out, he probably didn’t make the best first impression.
“I had never taken the train downtown before. It was raining that day. I wasn’t fully equipped with an umbrella,” he said. “When I walk into Michelle’s office, not only am I late, I’m also kind of damp. So it’s not clear whether I made the best impression.”
She told Oprah her prayer for people’s ‘Becoming’ moment
When Winfrey asked the former first lady what she hopes for the people who are “becoming” themselves in the spirit of the book, Obama kept things simple: She hopes people can connect through shared stories.
“Truly, our stories are not in our DNA or in something that happened with our great-great-great-great grandfathers,” she said. “The truth of our stories are in the memories that we hold in our heads.
“What I wish for people is that they understand the value in their day-today stories and help to use that to figure out how you got to where you are.
“The R, the D, that doesn’t matter, race doesn’t matter, color doesn’t matter. Who we pray to, who we love, that truly doesn’t matter,” she said. “What binds us are these stories.”
She described her story as ‘quintessentially’ American
Obama said that although her book is personal and has stories specific to her, it is one many people can relate to.
“The one thing that I am claiming is that my story is the quintessential American story,” she said. “Yes, I’m black, yes; I’m a woman, yes; I grew up working-class; and yes; my parents didn’t get to finish college. That is part of the American dream. This story is it.
“So how dare somebody tell me that I don’t belong, that I don’t love my country? How dare somebody tell me that I don’t have a right to have a voice?
“My story does matter,” she said. “I love my story. it is the American story. My struggles, my journey, my small house on the South Side of Chicago, my father with a disability – all of that makes me more valuable to the conversation, not less.”