Michelle Obama Admits She Thought Husband Barack Was a ‘Dweeb’ and ‘Nerdy’ Before Meeting Him

Michelle Obama‘s expectations of what she thought Barack Obama would be like did not match reality — in a good way!

The former first lady, 62, appeared as a guest on the Monday, May 17, episode of the Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso podcast and recounted meeting the former president, 64.

Michelle explained that when she was working as a junior associate at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin, Barack, then a Harvard Law School student, was hired there for his first-year summer.

“Everybody that met him, that interviewed him, was like, ‘He’s amazing,'” she recalled. “And the, you know, secretary’s like, ‘And he’s cute, and he’s this, and he’s that, and he’s like Barack Obama.’ And I was like, ‘OK, whatever.'”

However, the IMO podcast host said she saw a picture of the A Promised Land author and didn’t see the appeal.

“The picture is not a great picture. I mean, it looks like he’s gone into like, a 7-Eleven to take his picture, right?” she shared. “I mean, it’s bad lighting, and you know, and I was like, ‘I don’t think he’s that cute.'”

“And I’m thinking, ‘OK, these are white people that are flipping over an articulate Black man.’ So I was like, let me just lower my expectations. And then it was like he was from Hawaii and I was like, ‘who what Black people are in Hawaii?'” she questioned. “I already had in my mind that this was going to be some nerdy ultraconservative, you know, I just sort of painted a picture, not an angry picture. I was just like, ‘I know what I’m getting.'”

Much to her surprise, Michelle said when she called Barack to introduce herself, she was met with his deep, booming voice.

“I had already pictured him as kind of a dweeb kind of person who would be appealing to white people as a Black man,” she confessed. “But I was like, ‘Woo!’ The voice was sexy over the phone. And I was like, “‘Wow, this is Barack Obama.'”

When it came time to meet Barack in person at work, it’s safe to say the Becoming author was pleasantly surprised.

“I went to greet him at the reception’s office, and there he was. Which I was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect this,'” she admitted. “He was tall, handsome, had some flavor, and I was like, ‘Wow.'”

The couple — who share daughters, Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24 — tied the knot in 1992 after Barack graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991.