Former first lady Michelle Obama accidentally used an expletive while talking about her marriage to former President Barack Obama during a book tour stop for her best-selling memoir, Becoming.
“Marriage still ain’t equal, y’all,” Obama said Saturday night at an event in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, according to Vanity Fair. “It ain’t equal. I tell women that whole ‘you can have it all’ — mmm, nope, not at the same time, that’s a lie. It’s not always enough to lean in because that shit doesn’t work.”
Obama quickly walked backed her comments, made during an on-stage conversation with poet and friend Elizabeth Alexander, after it engendered laughs and a round of applause from the capacity crowd.
“I thought we were at home, y’all,” she said. “I was gettin’ real comfortable up in here. Alright, I’m back now. Sometimes that stuff doesn’t work.”
Obama referenced Lean In in her remarks, the memoir that made Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg a global phenomenon and prompted the creation of women-only support “circles” bearing the same name. Sandberg’s overarching advice was for professional women to be more assertive in their careers.
Last week, Obama’s Becoming was named the biggest-selling book of 2018 after more than 2 million copies were sold in its hardcover, electronic, and audio formats across the U.S. and Mexico in the first 15 days since its official release on Nov. 13.
