Former first lady Michelle Obama, after a year where she packed stadiums for the book tour for her memoir "Becoming," which sold more than 11 million copies, has been named one of People Magazine's four People of the Year.
She joins Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, and Taylor Swift for the magazine's top honors.
Obama told People in an interview that while she's been called a "rock star" after her sold-out arena tours, but she doesn't really feel like one.
“If you saw me on most days, in my sweats or workout clothes, you’d see that I don’t make a very good rock star," Obama said. "Of course, life feels a little different than it did while we were in the White House."
In fact, she was worried that nobody would come to her arena events, or for that matter, buy her book.
“Here I’d been the first lady of the United States for eight years, giving speeches in front of huge crowds, but this felt so different,” she said of the tour, which took her to 31 cities. “I recognize now that the memoir and the tour were really different than what I’d done before — I wasn’t promoting a policy or rallying votes; I was out there, alone, talking about my feelings and vulnerabilities."
Obama said one of the most powerful parts of the year was when she talked to young people about how "our inadequacies are usually our strengths."
In November, Obama earned her first Grammy nomination for narrating the audiobook version of her memoir. She and her husband, former President Barack Obama, also in 2019 released the first project from their production deal with Netflix.
She also took the top spot on the annual world’s most admired women list, according to an annual study by YouGov, coming in ahead of Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Queen Elizabeth, and Emma Watson.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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