In a podcast episode released on Wednesday, conservative commentator Meghan McCain and Puck senior political correspondent Tara Palmeri fueled speculation that former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama are divorcing.
“Fast and furious, I’ve been hearing rumors from reputable sources that the Obamas are getting divorced. I am not talking about TMZ. I’m not talking about Perez Hilton, though I adore him; he’s a friend.
“I’m talking about serious journalists telling me that the Obama divorce rumors are true,” McCain began the conversation. Do you agree with that? Have you heard this? “Do you think it is just garbage?”
“Oh, yes! I mean, I’ve certainly heard it for a while, even before Michelle said she wasn’t going to the inauguration, which could be interpreted as another act of resistance, which would only make her — if that’s true and they stayed together — more of a baddie in the movement, when there really is no one in the Democratic Party who is holding that mantle aside from AOC,” Palmeri responded.
“But, yes, we have heard that for a long time. I just heard that they have separate lives. That is exactly what happened. But they are, in many ways, America’s sweethearts, and I believe it would be devastating,” added the political reporter.
Palmeri went on to say that the former first couple had shared an Instagram post commemorating their anniversary, prompting McCain to comment that it was “a very weird photo, though, of her.”
“And I think she’s a very pretty lady, and I was like, ‘This picture is not doing her justice for how beautiful she is.'” I would kill Ben [Domenech] if he posted a picture of me without makeup in that lighting on social media.
I’d kill him, so it didn’t, for me, help the rumors, and why are you putting this like, shitty picture of your wife up?” she protested.
“And, you know, you see this in a lot of celebrity divorce cases that are being handled.
They put up a post about their love for each other before the divorce, and it’s sort of like a way to lay the groundwork so that people think, ‘Oh, well it was like amicable, and they’re good people, and they want the best for each other,’ and, you know, and it’s just like, or it’s buying time,” replied Palmeri.
I also sort of wonder because like, yes, a lot of the sources that I like am hearing this through, they’re very political. Like this isn’t like TMZ crap that’s telling me about it. And I do think like there’s not a lot of goodwill around Obama right now because he essentially like orchestrated the pushing out of Joe Biden , right?
But I don’t know, it just, I can’t, listen I’m not in their bedroom with them. I am not, you know, at home with them, but it’s not really surprising that at this phase of their life, and she clearly has very little interest — she’s always hated politics! She did not really like being First Lady.
