Unknowingly caught on a live mic, President Barack Obama joked Monday morning that he quit smoking because of his fear of the First Lady. “I haven’t had a cigarette in probably six years,” Obama told a U.N. official in New York. “That’s because I’m scared of my wife.”
In an interview last year with iVilliage, Michelle Obama said that the president quit smoking because of his daughters. “They are at the age now where you can’t hide, it’s clear,” Michelle said. “He would have to start having those conversations because we discuss all the . . . we talk about drugs. We talk about sex. We talk about smoking. We talk about it all.”
She added, “I think he didn’t want to look his girls in the eye and tell them that they shouldn’t do something that he was still doing.”
President Obama is still reportedly seen chewing nicotine replacement gum around the White House.