Michelle Obama is breaking her silence on eldest daughter Malia Obama’s decision to drop her last name.
Malia Ann, who is pursuing a film career in Hollywood, used her middle name as her artistic name for the credits of short film “The Heart” which she wrote and directed, that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024.
During a Wednesday, June 4, appearance on the “Sibling Revelry” podcast cohosted by Oliver and Kate Hudson, Obama addressed Malia’s decision to ditch Obama after former President Barack Obama’s second term.
The Obamas also share University of Southern California alum Sasha Obama.
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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. … They’re still doing that,” Obama told the Hudson siblings, noting that “you guys know this as the children of parents who are known.”
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The Hudsons are the children of actress Goldie Hawn and previously estranged dad, musician Bill Hudson, although they count Hawn’s longterm partner Kurt Russell as a father figure.
“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,” the “Becoming” author added. “They’re very sensitive to that – they want to be their own people.”
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On Malia’s first project “she took off her last name, and we were like, they’re still going to know it’s you, Malia,” Obama continued. “But we respected the fact that she’s trying to make her way.”
Obama told the Hudson siblings, during the appearance alongside her own brother and “IMO” podcast co-host Craig Robinson, that “our daughters didn’t want to be little princesses in the White House.”
“They wanted to push the envelope; they needed some rope. They wanted to try some things, they wanted to be out in the world, and I knew that under the circumstances, they needed more rope than I probably would’ve given them if I were my mom,” Obama said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Did Malia Obama change her name? Michelle Obama on daughter’s change
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