Michelle Obama admitted to having mixed feelings when she met her husband Barack Obama - and feared their relationship would "ruin" her career as a lawyer, but she gave in to his overpowering charisma.
With divorce rumors still swirling around the couple, Michelle shared an eyebrow-raising account of how they fell in love while working at a law firm.
As she recalled on an episode of her podcast IMO, Barack had a reputation as a "brilliant" Harvard Law student before she met him for the first time.
She was struck by his "weird" first name and assumed he would be "nerdy" because "white people" seemed to like him.
Even back then, Michelle had a chip on her shoulder about race, it seems.
"I got his profile [at the law firm] and I thought, what kind of a name is Barack Obama?"
"And he's black, and everyone at the law firm was excited that he was black, and I was like, 'he's probably weird, because he's a nerd if a lot of white people are all infatuated with him.'"
After meeting Barack, Michelle found him to be more confident and attractive than she anticipated. It was love at first sight, or rather, the first "hello."
"I had this image of a nerdy guy, and then the first sparky feeling I had, I felt actually, was when I talked to him on the phone and he had his Barack Obama voice. He's like, 'hello', the voice was sexier than the image I had, so I sort of didn't expect this," she said.
Before long, she was inseparable from her new work "buddy," and as they got closer, Michelle feared that she was compromising her job. She even tried setting him up with a friend.
"I told myself it would be completely inappropriate for me to date this dude that I'm advising. It would be tacky, and it would be expected, so I kind of talked myself out of it," she said.
One night, while out with their work colleagues, Barack suggested leaving alone with Michelle. She had a moment of doubt but was unable to resist his "radical," devil-may-care attitude.
"I was like, 'oh, he's radical, he's like a rule breaker' and we left at intermission, we left two seats open in the box at the firm."
"I was like 'I'm ruining my career,' but we went out for drinks and I really liked him."
Despite her misgivings, marrying a future president turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her.
She owes all her fame, wealth, and notoriety to being the wife of the 44th president, but you would never guess from how often she belittles him in public.
It's no wonder that the couple can't seem to dodge rumors of divorce - no matter how often they put on this cutesy lovebird routine.
