Barack Obama has spoken out about his oldest daughter Malia’s decision not to use her last name professionally.

The 26-year-old daughter of the former president and Michelle Obama made her directorial debut back in February at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival with The Heart. However, instead of the film’s credits listing her as Malia Obama, she used her first and middle name, Malia Ann.

The director’s father recently spoke on The Pivot Podcast where he admitted the choice didn’t come as a shock to him. “The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all,” he said about both Malia and his 23-year-old daughter Sasha. “I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it.”

Despite Malia wanting to separate herself from the family name professionally, her father reminded her that people may still recognize her regardless.

“I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,’” Obama said on the podcast. “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.’ So I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that.”

However, as the Obama children have grown up, they have received more and more media attention.

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

Obama said he and Michelle wanted to make sure that Malia and Sasha grew up having a normal childhood, which is why he almost didn’t run for office. However, he had made a deal with the White House press pool to ensure that his children were not bothered.

“I basically made a deal with the press pool,” he explained. “I said, ‘You can follow me around. You can talk about me. You do whatever you need to do. Leave my children alone because they have the right to grow up. They didn’t choose this. Let them grow up.’ And to the credit of the press, they did leave them alone.”

As his children have grown up, he praised what they have been able to accomplish. “They’ve turned out amazing,” Obama said about his daughters. “I can’t brag about them enough.”

Despite Malia choosing to not use her last name, many people labelled her a “nepo baby” as one critic of the short film wrote, “Calling yourself ‘Malia Ann’ is not going to avert any Nepo Baby criticisms, Miss Former First Daughter.”

Whoopi Goldberg, who also uses a stage name, spoke on The View in defense of Malia’s decision explaining that she has a right to what professional name she chooses to use.

“She knows she’s an Obama, why do you care?” Goldberg said at the time. “Why do you care what she calls herself? If she wanted to call herself Jeanette McDonald, she has the right to! If I can be Whoopi Goldberg, she can be whoever the hell she wants to be!”

“I mean, why are people triggered by this kind of stuff? Why are people wasting their time?” she added.

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