Michelle Obama addresses marriage rumours as she explains why she missed Donald Trump's inauguration

Rumours have been absolutely doing the rounds in recent months regarding Barack and Michelle Obama’s marriage.

It all seemed to ramp up earlier this year when the former first lady did not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration.

But things seemed to go from one extreme to another as there has even been speculation that Barack was dating Jennifer Aniston.

Michelle then spoke out to shut down rumours of divorce and she’s now opened up about why she didn’t attend the event in January that saw Trump sworn into office as the President of the United States.

That wasn’t the only thing she missed in January either, as not long before the inauguration, the 61-year-old didn’t show at Jimmy Carter’s funeral, where she would have been seated next to the now president.

Michelle already shut down divorce rumours (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In the latest episode of her IMO podcast (released on 23 April), she says her absence from the spotlight was just simply ‘the choice that was right for me’.

“People couldn't believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she said, referencing the headlines surrounding both the inauguration and Barack’s solo outings.

“It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do.”

Michelle went on to say she had to ‘basically trick’ herself into going ahead with her wish to miss the inauguration which she did be making sure she’d have nothing to wear if the pressure did get to her.

“I was like, if I'm not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team, I don't even want to have a dress ready, right? Because it's so easy to just say let me do the right thing,” she said of the moment she finalised her decision to skip.

The former first lady is practicing the 'art of saying no' (Marcus Ingram/Getty Images)

And when it comes to going to events without her husband (and vice versa), it comes into her practicing the ‘art of saying no’ when it feels like the right decision.

Describing it as a ‘muscle’ that needs to be built, she explained: “And I think we suffered, because it's almost like we started training late in life to build that muscle, right? I am just now starting to build it.”

Michelle also wants her daughters to start practicing it to, even while she faces ‘a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction’.

“I still have to show people that I love my country,” she added.