Regarding his eldest daughter Malia’s choice to forego using her last name in her professional life, Barack Obama has made statements.
Back in February, the 26-year-old daughter of Michelle Obama and the former president made her directorial debut with The Heart at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. She went by her first and middle name, Malia Ann, in the movie’s credits rather than Malia Obama.
In a recent interview with The Pivot Podcast, the director’s father, Barack Obama, acknowledged that he wasn’t surprised by the decision.
“The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all,” he said about both Malia and his 23-year-old daughter Sasha. “I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it.”
Malia’s father cautioned her that even if she wanted to distance herself from the family name professionally, people would still recognize her.
“I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,’” Obama said on the podcast. “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.’ So I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that.”
“Now, as they’ve gotten older, there’s been some paparazzi stuff going on, and it drives them nuts,” the former president said. “Their attitude is, ‘We’re not looking for all that.’ So they’re grounded.”
Obama said he and Michelle wanted to make sure that Malia and Sasha grew up having a normal childhood, which is why he almost didn’t run for office. However, he had made a deal with the White House press pool to ensure that his children were not bothered.
“I basically made a deal with the press pool,” he explained. “I said, ‘You can follow me around. You can talk about me. You do whatever you need to do. Leave my children alone because they have the right to grow up. They didn’t choose this. Let them grow up.’ And to the credit of the press, they did leave them alone.”
As his children have grown up, he praised what they have been able to accomplish. “They’ve turned out amazing,” Obama said about his daughters. “I can’t brag about them enough.”
