Sasha & Malia Obama's Solo Easter Doesn't Make Michelle's Divorce Denial Look Good

Signs that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's marriage won't last keep piling up, even though the former first lady staunchly denied rumors about their marital woes. Eyebrows were raised on Easter Sunday when Malia Obama and Sasha Obama were photographed together in a park with friends — and their parents were nowhere to be seen. In lieu of family time, the Obama sisters went to a park in Los Angeles, where Malia was spotted carrying a large purple cooler full of snacks and drinks. The sisters appeared to be having a good time with a couple of close friends on the holiday, but it did beg the question as to why they weren't with Barack and Michelle.

That same day, Barack took to Instagram to share a carousel of photos from Easter celebrations at the White House. The upload even included a pic of Barack planting a kiss on his wife's face in front of someone in an Easter bunny costume. Unfortunately, the snaps of the Obamas watching over an Easter egg race and cozying up were throwbacks to when Barack was in office, so the post did little to dispel the gossip that the couple is on the outs.

The photos of the Obama sisters and Barack's throwback Easter post came not long after Michelle denied rumors of her marriage's demise. "This year people were — they couldn't even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing," Michelle said on the "Work in Progress" podcast on April 8. The former FLOTUS addressed the divorce rumors after Barack had been seen in Los Angeles with their daughters, but without his wife. 

Divorce chatter flew when Barack Obama was spotted out solo while in Los Angeles in early March. First, photographers captured the former president grabbing dinner with Malia Obama and Sasha Obama at the L.A. eatery Anajak Thai. It was only the trio at dinner, as Michelle Obama was nowhere to be seen. More breakup buzz floated around when Barack went to a Los Angeles Clippers game by himself a day after meeting his daughters. "They on the outs," one person wrote on X when news of Barack's Michelle-free evening circulated.

Weeks earlier, Michelle and Barack attempted to squash divorce rumors with a matching pair of overly mushy Valentine's Day posts. Both of them posted the same adorable couple's selfie to Instagram, and they each added a touching caption. "Thirty-two years together and you still take my breath away," Barack gushed on his post. "If there's one person I can always count on, it's you," Michelle wrote in her caption. Meanwhile, several followers were unconvinced and believed the Valentine's Day posts were subterfuge to obscure trouble in paradise.

The rumor mill had gone into overdrive a month earlier when Michelle skipped out on attending former president Jimmy Carter's funeral in January. Political pundit Jack Posobiec tweeted at the time that Michelle bailed on Carter's funeral because "she and Barack are on the outs."