Barack Obama Says Daughters Want Success Without Leveraging Last Name

Barack Obama’s daughters are eschewing the nepo baby label.

The former president sat down with The Pivot podcast, discussing Sasha and Malia Obama's attempt to make it in their respective fields without their famous last names. He noted that his older daughter, Malia even changed her credit in her directorial film debut, 2023’s The Heart, to Malia Ann.

“Her first film went to Sundance and all these fancy film festivals and she didn’t use ‘Obama’ as a director on the credits,” he said. “I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are.'”

He explained that Malia wanted viewers to watch The Heart without knowing who she was. “And she’s all like, ‘You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association,'” he added.

Obama shared that 26-year-old Malia and 23-year-old Sasha want to get ahead based on their own merit. “I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that,” he said.

In fact, his daughters don’t want him and his wife, Michelle, to assist them at all. “The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all,” Obama added. “I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it.”

In February, Malia’s decision to go by Malia Ann was met with criticism, with some accusing her of attempting to bypass the nepo baby discourse. Malia was also credited as Malia Ann in Donald Glover’s 2022 series Swarm.

Whoopi Goldberg later defended Malia on The View. “If she went as Malia Obama, they’d be like ‘she’s riding her parents’ coattails.’ And I can’t think of a bigger shadow to feel like you’re living in than the President and First Lady of the United States,” Goldberg said. “If she knows she’s an Obama, why do you care? Why do you care what she calls herself?”

Editor's Note: Malia was previously a remote intern at Complex; she also didn't use her last name.