How the Obamas reacted to daughter Malia dropping her last name as director

Barack Obama has spoken out about his oldest daughter Malia’s decision not to use her last name professionally.

The 26-year-old daughter of the former president and Michelle Obama made her directorial debut back in February at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival with The Heart. However, instead of the film’s credits listing her as Malia Obama, she used her first and middle name, Malia Ann.

Barack recently spoke on The Pivot Podcast where he admitted the choice didn’t come as a shock to him. “The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all,” he said about both Malia and his 23-year-old daughter Sasha. “I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it.”

Despite Malia wanting to separate herself from the family name professionally, her father reminded her that people may still recognize her regardless.

“I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,’” Obama said on the podcast. “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.”