Barack Obama Warned Malia About Dropping Their Last Name

Barack Obama has some thoughts about his eldest daughter Malia’s decision to drop their last name in her burgeoning professional endeavors. During a recent podcast appearance, the Former President talked about his daughter’s Obama-less title which she introduced during her directorial debut at January’s Sundance Film Festival.

“Her first film went to Sundance and all these fancy film festivals and she didn’t use ‘Obama’ as a director on the credits,” Barack explained on an episode of the “Pivot” podcast. The politician added that even with Malia’s choice to drop the Obama last name, he advised her that the festival’s audience would still figure out who was behind the film.

“I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,’” he said, explaining that Malia responded by saying “‘You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association.’”

Malia’s 18-minute short film The Heart centers on a grieving son whose mother left him an unusual request in her will. The Harvard graduate collaborated with Donald Glover on the project. She had previously worked with Glover in 2022 in the writers’ room for his Amazon Prime Video thriller, Swarm. “The film is about lost objects and lonely people and forgiveness and regret, but I also think it works hard to uncover where tenderness and closeness can exist in those things,” she said in an interview at the time. She later brought the movie to the American Film Festival in September where she wore a checked Vivienne Westwood look on the red carpet.

Despite Malia’s Hollywood power moves, Barack reiterated that both she and her younger sister Sasha—who were just spotted partying with Billie Eilish and Charli XCX in L.A.—aren’t on board with using their family’s connections to advance their careers. “I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that,” the Former President said referencing talk that they’ve gotten ahead due to their last name. “The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all,” he continued. “I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it.”

“Now, as they’ve gotten older, there’s been some paparazzi stuff going on, and it drives them nuts, because their attitude is, ‘We're not looking for all that.’ So they’re grounded.”