When Michelle Obama recently made an appearance on a chat show hosted by her friend and artist, Jennifer Hudson, she shared some interesting insights. While she was effusive about various topics, she maintained a more practical tone when discussing her husband, Barack.

‘He’s doing OK, he’s doing OK,’ she said. ‘Yeah, yeah. He’s still working too hard, you know. But I think that’s something he will always do.’

Michelle mentioned that Barack was preoccupied with his current endeavor, the Obama Presidential Center, which is being established as a museum and library in Chicago. She also humorously pointed out that he was not the easiest person to shop for when it came to Christmas gifts, revealing little else about their enduring relationship of over 30 years.

During the conversation about their holiday plans in Hawaii, Michelle disclosed that they were looking forward to relaxing under the sun on the island. She playfully added, “That’s why you gotta pick your husband right. He got a lot cuter when I found out he was from Hawaii,” subtly emphasizing the importance of compatibility and shared interests in a long-term partnership.

She was certainly ‘unwinding’. Mrs Obama – 61 today – didn’t even break off from her holiday to come back for the state funeral in Washington last week of ex-President Jimmy Carter. Her husband was instead placed next to Donald Trump.

She will be absent, too, at Trump’s inauguration in Washington DC on Monday. It’s a tradition, admittedly broken by the Trumps themselves when they missed Joe Biden’s 2021 ceremony, that previous Presidents and their First Ladies put aside their political differences to attend inaugurations.

A source close to Mrs Obama explained to People magazine: ‘There’s no overstating her feelings about [Trump]. She’s not one to plaster on a pleasant face and pretend for protocol’s sake.’ The insider added: ‘Michelle doesn’t do anything because it’s expected or it’s protocol or it’s tradition.’

A similar message from Michelle’s camp was provided to the New York Post, with a source saying: ‘She’s always been very deliberate about where and how she shows up. She showed up reluctantly for the election. They were united, but she doesn’t have to unify around [Trump]. Her absence speaks volumes.’

However, it was her no-show at the Carter funeral that is harder to understand. She could surely have had no animus towards a man who, days earlier in a joint statement with Barack, she’d praised for embodying ‘integrity, respect and compassion’.

This was a crucial gathering of the Democrat clans: Carter was the 100-year-old elder statesman of the Democratic Party and the longest-living ex-President in US history. The absence of Mrs Obama, who dutifully attended the funeral of Republican ex-President George H W Bush in 2018, was glaring. Obama aides briefed CNN that a ‘scheduling conflict’ had kept her away, but admitted it probably wasn’t much of a conflict as she was ‘still in Hawaii on an extended holiday vacation’.

The Obamas, estimated to be worth $70 million, have been putting the finishing touches to a beachfront compound on the island of Oahu that includes two swimming pools – a fitting addition to a property empire that includes mansions in Washington, Chicago and Martha’s Vineyard.

Her spokesman issued a statement saying: ‘Mrs Obama sends her thoughts and prayers to the Carter family, and everyone who loved and learned from the remarkable former President.’

Granted, she would reportedly have been assigned a seat next to Trump (although she could surely have swapped seats with Barack, 63, and quietly made her point).

There’s no love lost between the Obamas and Trump. Michelle has lambasted him over sexual assault allegations made by various women and accused him of putting the whole Obama family at risk through some of his wilder attacks on Barack, including the ‘birther’ conspiracy that he wasn’t born in the US. She’s said she found it difficult to sit through Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, later breaking down in tears.

But surely, said critics, she could have put aside her feelings about Trump – with whom her husband was seen laughing at the service – to pay tribute to Carter. Particularly after the Obamas issued a statement after Trump’s victory in November in which they called on Americans to ‘extend good faith and grace – even to people with whom we deeply disagree’.

In fact, her behaviour in missing the event seemed so out of character that some are wondering whether there may be another explanation. Social media is buzzing with speculation that it’s not Trump she doesn’t want to be near – and that, instead, something may be up in her marriage.

The couple – who met as young lawyers working for the same Chicago firm in 1989 – celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary in October and delighted their army of social media fans by sharing a photo of them hugging each other at a museum in New York.

‘I couldn’t have asked for a better partner and friend to go through life with,’ said Mr Obama in a message accompanying the photo. She echoed the sentiment, saying: ‘32 action-packed years with my honey! Through it all, thank you for always having my back, being by my side, and finding ways to make me smile. I love you, @Barack Obama.’

A clear-cut mutual declaration of love and commitment, one might have thought, although social media sleuths are far from convinced. After all, the Obamas – especially Michelle – have repeatedly punctured their fawning fan club’s image of them as the perfectly-married couple.

She admitted in a 2022 panel discussion that for a decade – when their daughters Malia and Sasha were young – she hated her husband. ‘People think I’m being catty – it’s like, there were ten years where I couldn’t stand my husband.’

In 2023, Mr Obama also tackled the subject of marriage difficulties in an interview with CBS, and was asked about Michelle’s remarks the previous year. ‘Let me just say this: it sure helps to be out of the White House and to have a little more time with her,’ he said.

Mrs Obama has admitted that part of the problem is their different personalities. ‘Barack wants to talk rationally and I’m like “rational”?’, she once told Oprah Winfrey in a podcast chat in which she conceded she was more ‘hot-headed’ than the famously phlegmatic Obama. ‘Don’t come to me with sense – I’m angry! Don’t come to me with your three bullet points – you better get out of here and let me cool down!’

The couple have also had to contend with lingering rumours of Barack’s wandering eye. Last October, Friends star Jennifer Aniston publicly dismissed as ‘absolutely untrue’ claims by a US gossip magazine that she and Barack were in a relationship –making Michelle feel ‘betrayed’.

The rumour was compounded by the hosts of a popular pop culture podcast – Who? Weekly – who claimed that the Obamas were ‘living separate lives’ while he and Aniston were having a full-blown affair. Aniston told a US TV chat show host: ‘I’ve met him once. I know Michelle more than him.’

In a 2017 biography of Obama by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Garrow, Sheila Miyoshi Jager – an ex-girlfriend who Barack came close to marrying before he met Michelle – revealed they’d kept up an intimate, if occasional, relationship between 1991 and 1992, when he had been with Michelle for a couple of years. ‘I always felt bad about it,’ Jager told Garrow.

In late 2013, the National Enquirer claimed the Obamas’ marriage had dissolved after Michelle discovered his Secret Service bodyguards were covering up for his infidelity. They were endlessly fighting, it was claimed, after he posed for a selfie with the glamorous blonde Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Mrs Obama was photographed sitting on his other side with a face like thunder.

Mrs Obama, the Enquirer claimed, would stand by her husband until his presidency ended when he would move back to Hawaii and she would stay in Washington. More than a decade later, they’re still together – albeit she’s the one in Hawaii.

Whatever the state of their marriage, it won’t have been helped by the sight of Trump and Obama giggling together at Jimmy Carter’s funeral.