Barack Obama gave rare insight into his relationship with his daughters, Sasha and Malia, and their strong personalities in a new interview in which he addressed the latter's name change.
Earlier this year, Malia premiered her movie, The Heart at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and revealed she'd dropped her famous last name.
The 26-year-old filmmaker now uses her first and middle name, Malia Ann.
Barack — who shares his grown children with his wife, Michelle Obama — shared his feelings over her decision on The Pivot Podcast.
"The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all," he said of his daughters. "I mean they're very sensitive about this stuff. They're very stubborn about it."
When he discovered Malia had ditched Obama for a new professional name, he said he told her people would still recognize that they're related.
"I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,'" he explained. "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."
Since moving to Los Angeles for college and to work in the entertainment industry, Sasha, 23, and Malia, have garnered the attention of photographers.
However, Barack confessed that wasn't their intention, telling the outlet that his daughters told him: "'We’re not looking for all that,'" before he added: "So they're grounded."
Barack said he was grateful that his offspring were able to be somewhat shielded from the stoplight during his presidency and at his request, the press focused on him.
"I basically made a deal with the press pool. 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."
Barack and Michelle are incredibly proud of the women Sasha and Malia have become and he highlighted this during his conversation.
He said Malia's work featured in "all these fancy film festivals," and they have their heads screwed on right.
"They’ve turned out amazing," he added. "I can't brag about them enough."
Malia recently made a rare and unexpected red carpet appearance at the Deauville American film festival in northern France, and confessed it was a new experience for her.
During a brief conversation with Paris Match, she acknowledged she has "never done anything like this."
"I'm so excited," she said, admitting: "So [I'm] a little bit terrified, but mostly just excited."