Those dang rumors won’t stop hounding the Democrats’ favorite former first couple.

Anytime Barack and Michelle Obama are brought up these days, it’s usually about one of two topics.

First, where is Barack Obama? Second, and much more awkwardly, is the Obama marriage on the rocks?

That second question, as deeply personal as it is, has been the focus of many observers who’ve noted the lack of warmth between the former first couple.

Exacerbating those rumors was Michelle’s disappearance from various political functions that Barack attended, such as President Donald Trump’s inauguration and former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

It’s the elephant (or donkey) in the room when discussing the Obamas.

In fact, Michelle Obama couldn’t even avoid the topic while interviewing with the Democrat-friendly National Public Radio.

NPR’s Rachel Martin first asked Obama about the inauguration and funeral she had missed.

“One of the major decisions I made this year was to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I’m supposed to attend,” she said, denigrating the concept of duty. “That was a part of me using my ambition to say, ‘Let me define what I want to do, apart from what I’m supposed to do, what the world expects of me.’

“And I have to own that. Those are my choices. Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it. But I didn’t regret it, you know? It’s my life now, and I can say that, now.

“But we’ll see. Maybe next year, we sit down, I’ll go, ‘You know, Rachel, I went a little too far.'”

That naturally led Martin to broach the divorce rumors.

“The fact that people don’t see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage,” Obama said. “It’s like, ‘OK, so we don’t Instagram every minute of our lives.’

“We are 60. We’re 60, y’all. You just are not gonna know what we’re doing every minute of the day.”

Curiously, the interview then pivoted to a subject that would only seem to enforce that there was some sort of rift between Michelle and Obama.

“On feeling like she has never been able to realize her own ambition because she has always put family first, and how now she has the chance to for the first time in her life” is the header to this bit.

“Has ambition ever led you astray?” Martin asked.

“I don’t know if my ambition has ever fully been able to actualize itself because of the nature of what me and my husband have done,” Obama said.

“As a team. It wasn’t about your individual ambition,” Martin continued.

“Right,” Michelle said. “It was the team ambition. And I went along, arguably kicking and screaming, right?

“And you know, I think I’m now at a stage in my life where all my choices are mine. Now I can say that whatever I’m doing from this point on is about my ambition.”

While the term “kicking and screaming” may raise a few eyebrows, Obama is no stranger to doing that.

Adding to these persistent divorce rumors, Michelle Obama recently made waves when she claimed that she was glad she never had a son, “because he would have been a Barack Obama.”

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