The day I discovered secret of star Michelle’s power
MICHELLE Obama blew into town last week, less a gentle breeze than a whirlwind of inspirational messaging. She could have filled the Royal Festival Hall ten times over, where she was on stage talking to novelist Chimamande Ngozi Adichie, since tickets for the event sold out within minutes of going on sale. Her beguiling memoir, Becoming, is top of the bestsellers charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Why are people, especially women, so enthralled by her? I think I know the answer, having met her in 2009 when she and her husband travelled to London for his first major international trip as President of the United States.
They were here for the G20 summit hosted by our then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. While the various world leaders were closeted in a conference room, Sarah Brown was detailed to look after the ‘spouses’ – the gender-neutral term deliberately employed in case Angela Merkel’s husband decided to join. Sarah set up a morning of entertainment and lunch at the Royal Opera House and asked me to organise commemorative photographs by Mario Testino.
The spouses all gathered in the Crush Bar. The head-scarved figure of Mrs Erdogan (wife of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan), the lilac-suited Russian Svetlana Medvedeva (wife of then President Dmitry Medvedev), Laureen Harper (wife of then Canadian PM Stephen Harper) and a confident Sarah Brown in a royal blue cardigan and skirt.
They were joined by J.K. Rowling, who was to read a book extract, and the delightful Maggie Darling, wife of the then-Chancellor Alistair, who helpfully bustled around introducing herself as the ‘next-door neighbour’ – possibly a trifle baffling to foreign guests unaware of the geography of numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street.
And finally, there arrived Michelle Obama, who swished into the room with a blue ballerina-style full skirt and harlequin patterned top, instantly transforming the low-key gathering, its polite chatter reminiscent of a parent-teacher meeting, into a historical event. In seconds, her mere presence reduced everyone else to bit-part players. Because she is a mega-watt star.
A part of her power was physical – she looked incredible – big and strong. Her double-row pearl necklace was outshone by her gleaming white teeth and her false lashes could have swept the red carpet below our feet. She worked the room with smiles and jokes, bending just a fraction to talk but without a trace of the apologetic hunch so many tall women adopt.
HER camaraderie instantly defrosted the formal atmosphere as she shared her excitement at having met the Queen the previous day, joking that when she called her daughters to tell them of this great event they were utterly disinterested, preferring to share their plans for upcoming April Fool’s Day. At no point did she demonstrate anything other than complete ownership of the space or a jot of the insecurity she might well have felt only two months into her new role as wife of the most powerful man in the world.
After lunch she apologised for being the first to leave as she was ushered into the motorcade waiting to escort her to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson girls’ school. Last week she returned to that school in North London, where 92 per cent of the pupils are from black and ethnic minorities and many are severely economically underprivileged, to instil another generation with her powerful message that they should not limit their aspirations. That she had once been just like them. That the future they wished for was theirs if they worked hard enough and reached out far enough to grab it.
But the truth is that she isn’t just like them. She isn’t just like most of us. She is a rare force of nature with the energy of a supernova. In her new book she describes her younger self: ‘If there was a challenge to vault, I’d vault it.’
As a working mum she would go to the gym at 5am each day – aided by her own dutiful mother who would arrive at her home even earlier to cover for her. As First Lady, the weekends away with friends she organised at the presidential retreat of Camp David were known as Boot Camps, where keepfit and challenging tasks were the order of the day rather than cocktails and sleep-ins. Again and again, she talks of how she has been motivated by her desire to ‘prove herself’ – even though with two Ivy League degrees, the oratory of Mark Antony, well-balanced and intelligent daughters, and her superstar husband, she has already achieved more than most people could ever dream of.
It’s interesting to wonder what she would have been like if she had been born white. If, from her very earliest years, she hadn’t been spurred on by the determination to demonstrate that she could, would and should be a part of a world she felt automatically excluded her. If she hadn’t been driven by a sense that she would always have to be more clever and more hard working than a white woman to justify her seat at the table. If she hadn’t viewed the world around her as a combat zone of prejudice and inequality that she had to conquer.
I hope that last week, as she received a standing ovation on stage, dressed head-to-toe in white, she finally allowed herself to feel what the rest of the world knows to be true: she has, most definitely, proven herself.