Michelle Obama shares her thoughts on daughter Malia’s decision to drop her last name

Former first lady Michelle Obama said she and her husband, Barack, respect their daughter Malia dropping her last name “Obama” in professional projects — and praised how both of their daughters more generally “want to be their own people.”

Malia Obama used her middle name, Ann, as her last name for the credits of a short film she wrote and directed, “The Heart,” which aired at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024.

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“Our daughters [Malia and Sasha] are 25 and 23. They are young adult women, but they definitely went through a period in their teen years where it was the push away … [where] you’re trying to distinguish yourself,” Michelle Obama told actors Kate and Oliver Hudson in an episode of their podcast “Sibling Revelry” published on Monday.

“I mean, it is very important for my kids to feel like they’ve earned what they are getting in the world, and they don’t want people to assume that they don’t work hard, that they’re just naturally, just handed things,” she said. “They’re very sensitive to that — they want to be their own people.

“Malia, who started in film, I mean, her first project — she took off her last name, and we were like, they’re still going to know it’s you, Malia,” Michelle Obama added. “But we respected the fact that she’s trying to make her way.”

Both Malia and Sasha Obama now also understand more about their parents’ positions as they were raised, Michelle Obama added: “As they’re older, I think they are embracing our parenting principles. … They have a clearer understanding of why we did a lot of what we did.

“They understand us as full human beings now, in the same way that I think I discovered that about my parents when I went away to college,” she said.

Barack Obama sounded a similar note in October, telling former football player and “The Pivot Podcast” host Ryan Clark , “[Malia’s] first film went to Sundance and all these fancy film festivals, and she didn’t use Obama as director on the credits.”

“‘You do know they’ll know who you are,'” he said he told her. “And she’s all like, ‘You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association [with the Obama last name].’ So I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that.”

Michelle Obama’s comments come as the former first lady has begun speaking more openly about her time in the White House and afterward.

In an April episode of actress Sophia Bush’s podcast “Work in Progress,” Michelle Obama pushed back on rumors and speculation that she and her husband were going through a divorce because of her absence at high-profile events, such as President Donald Trump’s inauguration, saying that society has created expectations in which women are expected to do what others think they should — or else face criticism.

“You know, that — this couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions for herself, right? But that’s what society does to us,” she said. “We start actually, finally, like going, what am I? What am I doing? You know, who am I doing this for?

“And if it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labeled as something negative and horrible,” she said.