The untold truth of Malia Obama

America’s birthday is a time when America’s politicians are expected to take part in all the fanfare, picnics, and parades that are almost as important to the 4th of July as the fireworks. So when your father is one of those politicians and you happen to share a birthday with America, well, your birthday is sometimes a little bit upstaged. 

Such was the case for Malia, even before her father became president. According to a 2009 Chicago Tribune piece, she spent many a birthday in a hotel room, celebrating in between her father’s appearances. In 2008, for instance, the Tribune reports, “She spent the evening in a Holiday Inn Express hotel room in Montana. During a break in campaigning, the family partied in the hotel room, ordering in dinner and a birthday cake and dancing to her favorite songs from artists such as the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana.” While in 2007, she “spent her birthday following her father around southern and central Iowa, first at a coffeehouse in Oskaloosa, then at another family’s home in Pella, then at an Independence Day celebration at a Des Moines park and finally at an Iowa Cubs baseball game.”

Speaking of limits, just because the eldest Obama daughter was treated to elaborate birthday celebrations doesn’t mean she was spoiled. In fact, while she and her sister did “sorta, kinda” get an allowance, it wasn’t much, and it came with responsibilities. Malia’s father told People, “Originally, we were giving her a dollar a week as long as she did all her chores. It turns out that she’s been doing her chores even without prompting from the allowance, which makes me feel guilty that she’s been carrying on her end of the bargain and I haven’t been as consistent.” 

And if you thought those chores ended once they got into the White House, you’d be mistaken. According to The New York Times, moving into the White House didn’t change some things at all, with the Obama daughters still getting in bed at 8 p.m. (at least in that first year in the White House) and still being required to make their own beds and clean their own rooms. 

Malia’s father told Barbara Walters on ABC News that while his daughters are special to him and their mother, “they’re not special, you know in terms of having to do their homework or having to do chores.” Her mother added, “That was the first thing I said to some of the staff when I did my visit. Don’t make their beds. Make mine.” While she may have said it with a laugh, we’re pretty sure she wasn’t joking.

During her father’s campaign, one of the things he promised Malia and Sasha was that, win or lose, he’d get them a dog. It was, however, easier said than done because of Malia’s allergies. Her father told the press, “We have two criteria [for deciding on a dog] that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic so it has to be hypoallergenic.” The other criteria they hoped to meet was adopting from a shelter. “But, obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me,” the president said. “So, whether we’re going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.” 

Although Malia and her sister had been promised a dog by the time they entered the White House in January 2009, it took a bit of time to find the right one because of the pet dander allergy. But finally, in April 2009 the world got its first look at Bo Obama, a Portuguese water dog that was a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy. White allergists warned ahead of time that any dog can actually cause an allergic reaction, it seems Bo wasn’t an issue for Malia considering they got a second Portuguese water dog named Sunny in 2013.

Sure, she might have Secret Service available to drive her around wherever she wants and whenever she wants, but like any teen Malia was excited to learn how to drive. “Driving for Malia, I think, gives her a sense of normalcy, like the rest of her friends are doing,” Michelle Obama said in an interview with Rachael Ray (via CNN). “And my kids have got to learn how to live in the world like normal kids.” However, Michelle revealed that the Secret Service wouldn’t even let her get in the car with Malia and took on the task themselves.

One of the most stressful moments in a high school student’s educational career is deciding on which college to attend. As the daughter of two Harvard graduates and, of course, the president of the United States, Malia’s decision likewise wasn’t easy. 

According to the New York Times, the president told his daughter “not to stress too much about having to get into one particular college.” The Times reported that Malia was choosing between “Ivy League schools, liberal arts colleges and at least one top-ranked public university.” According to the Times, Malia visited a number of school during her decision-making process, including Brown, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania on the East Coast as well as Stanford and UC Berkeley on the West Coast. 

Michelle Obama told Seventeen that she doesn’t want her daughters to feel they have to “choose a name” when it comes to deciding on a college. “We live in a country where there are thousands of amazing universities,” she told them. “So, the question is: What’s going to work for you?”

To say that Malia was busy during her gap year would be an understatement. To kick things off, she spent summer 2016, her first summer as a high school graduate, interning at the U.S. Embassy in Spain. Whether this means that Malia is interested in following in her father’s political footsteps is unclear since after the internship was first reported, there wasn’t much news about it. Real news, that is. 

In the summer of 2017, a full year after her internship in Spain, fake news started circulating that she was fired from her internship for smoking marijuana. It was, as we said, fake news. The now-defunct website that first “reported” the incident reportedly had an About Us page that claimed it “uses facts that don’t exist and relies more on imagination than the truth.” Unfortunately that didn’t stop people from latching on to the rumor, showing once again that it’s really important to check your sources.

One might think that the daughter of a former United States president would have no issue finding a job after college graduation. However, like any normal college student, Malia took on some internships during her time off from school — though her positions definitely weren’t your average, boring data entry gigs. Instead, she gravitated toward the entertainment industry. 

In 2014, she got to work as a production assistant on the set of the (now canceled) Halle Berry show Extant. “She was fantastic,” Berry said in an interview with Andy Cohen. “She was down to do whatever a PA is asked to do.” Then in 2015, Malia worked on the set of HBO’s Girls. Lena Dunham told Howard Stern that Malia is “so smart” and that she was interested in doing “all the jobs.” 

Like most other teenaged high school graduates, Malia couldn’t wait to fly the coop (even if that coop was the White House). “Malia is more than ready to leave,” her father said during an interview with Ellen Degeneres. However, both of her parents are anxious about Malia’s departure. 

In an interview with People, Michelle full on side-eyed her husband for calling Malia a grown woman, asserting, “she’s still a baby!” Yep, sounds like the Obamas are just like any other family. The former president, on the other hand, says the hardest part about Malia leaving for college is that he’s losing his best friend. “It’s going to be hard for me not to have her around all the time,” he told Ellen. “But she’s ready to go. You can tell.”

The Lollapalooza 2016 scandal didn’t stop Malia from attending the festival again in 2017. This time, no nosy onlookers caught her smoking anything, but she still drew attention to herself with her wild dance moves. TMZ got video of Malia rocking on with friends and even rolling around on the ground during a set from The Killers. It seems she might’ve gone a little too hard — TMZ also has video of Malia getting whisked out of the festival on a golf cart, though it’s not clear how much time passed between each piece of footage.

While the public knew that Malia was going to be spending part of her gap year vacationing with her parents, and part of it working in film, no one knew that was also going to Bolivia and Peru through a Colorado-based group called Where There Be Dragons. The organization’s three-month gap year program helps students “examine current political trends, social movements, and environmental conservation efforts in the mountains and jungles of Bolivia and Peru,” according to their website. 

When we say that no one knew she was going, we really mean pretty much no one other than her family and the Secret Service, and that includes the guides. While they knew someone in their midst was important (due to the need for American bodyguards), they didn’t know who the important person was. One guide told The New York Times, “There was a blonde girl, and we assumed she was the important one,” only later learning, long after the trip was over, that it was Malia Obama who had joined them on their trek. In retrospect the guide called Malia “very humble” and “chatty,” noting that she “spoke Spanish very well” and was “mesmerized by the Bolivian landscape.”

While Malia has kept busy traveling the world, learning about the film industry, attending festivals, and starting college, her fashion sense hasn’t gone unnoticed. Though her mother is the one who has been called a fashion icon, Malia doesn’t seem to be far behind. It’s obvious her mother’s style is an influence, with The New York Times noting that, “For all the style credit Malia is garnering, there’s still a sense that she is closely mirroring her trendsetting mother” with both of them centering their looks around bold colors and patterns. 

Still, since that time Malia has come more into her own, with a style evolution certainly befitting a fashion icon in the making.