Michelle Obama Didn't See Any Romantic 'Potential' With Husband Barack When They First Met: 'We Developed Our Relationship'

Michelle Obama is the first to admit it wasn't love at first sight when she met now-husband Barack Obama decades ago.

On the Wednesday, January 21, episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, the former first lady explained how she was always able to be her true self around him since she wasn't romantically interested as they worked together.

"Fortunately, it was one of the things that drew me to him. I didn't have to change my fundamental self," the Becoming author, 62, spilled. "I think it helped that we started out that summer with me not seeing him as a potential because I was his advisor and I was like, 'Yeah, no, we're not gonna do that and well, you know, he's cute, but I have a lot of friends,' and so I think that helped, right? Because I wasn't, we didn't start up our relationship as, 'Oh, I'm gonna try to [date].'"

Michelle said she and the former president, 64, started as "peers," and "we developed our relationship because we had the same kinda humor and we'd make the same kind of jokes and we find the same things kinda corny, you know, and I was being fully myself, cynical in ways and, you know, I'd pick at him and be like, 'That's weird. Why do you do that?'"

"So the fact that that made him think, 'We should date,' right? It's like, that didn't repel him and I was like, 'No, we shouldn't date because that looks tacky.' He was like, 'I don't care what people say.' So what do I tell a lot of young girls, like dating different people helped me to see the difference in who Barack was when he showed up," she explained.

"If he had been the first person I dated because I just didn't date, I might have taken that for granted," Michelle acknowledged. "I might have thought, 'Well, that these are buddy vibes,' right? I had learned enough to know this is different in an important way and I just think that's the experience of dating different people and noticing in the end."

The mother-of-two also gave some advice, noting it's important to be satisfied with yourself before you strike up a romance.

"The only thing you really can control is you in this world and even in my marriage now, you know, you go for the period of, 'I want him to be different. I want him to do this differently,'" she confessed. "I've grown to know I don't have control over him, just like he doesn't have control over me, so let me do my work and let him do our work and together we come together as whole people."

The pair, who wed in 1992, were hit with numerous divorce rumors in 2025 as the ex-POTUS made several solo outings, but Michelle shut down the gossip.

"The fact that people don’t see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage," she spilled on the “Wild Card” podcast. "It’s like, ‘OK, so we don’t Instagram every minute of our lives.’ We are 60. We’re 60, y’all. You just are not gonna know what we’re doing every minute of the day."