Barack Obama Reacts to Daughter Malia Dropping Her Last Name Professionally
He's a proud dad.
With all this talk of nepo babies, Barack Obama's daughter Malia Obama is doing everything in her power to make it on her own.
President Obama recently appeared on The Pivot Podcast, where he was asked about how he and Michelle Obama encourage their daughters Malia and Sasha to be their own people in the world.
"The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all," the President said. "I mean, they're very sensitive about this stuff. They're very stubborn about it."
He continued, "Malia, she's making movies. So she made her first movie, and I'll be a dad, I'll brag a little bit. She's working with Donald [Glover], and you know, her first film went to Sundance and all these fancy film festivals—and she didn't use Obama as director on the credits. [She was] Malia Ann. She used her middle name and didn't put Obama. I was all like, 'You do know they'll know who you are?' 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 to it.'"
He concluded, "I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that."
Back in February of this year, news broke that the former First Daughter was going by Malia Ann in the credits for her short film The Heart, which (fact-check alert!) was in fact shown at Sundance.
Donald Glover told Vanity Fair about Malia in March, "I feel like she’s just somebody who’s gonna have really good things coming soon. Her writing style is great."
His brother Stephen Glover, who is working with Donald and Malia on a new Amazon series, joked, "We can’t be easy on her just because she’s the [former] president’s daughter."
And by the sounds of it, she wouldn't want that either!
