Barack Obama Says He Had To Quarantine With Malia’s British Boyfriend

If you’re not living alone in quarantine-life, you know that these months indoors have made it nearly impossible to NOT get to know the people around you better. Tight quarters and days on end together have made some couples and broken others. Fortunately, it seems for the Obamas quarantine has done the latter.

Former President Barack Obama shared the lessons he’s learned in quarantine after giving some very rare insight into what it was like in his family’s household during the beginning of the pandemic. According to Obama, the quarantine didn’t just include him and his wife Michelle. Or even just their daughters Malia, 22, and Sasha, 19.

Malia’s British boyfriend also joined in for the self-isolation period.

In an interview with Bill Simmons podcast this week, Obama opened up about his favorite part of COVID-19 isolation with his family.

“I think, [like] a lot of families, we went through that first month where we were playing games every night and doing little arts and crafts projects and then slowly, you know, they started to get a little bored with us,” he explained. “Maybe teaching Malia and Sasha, and Malia’s boyfriend who was with us for a little while, spades.”

The former president went onto add that Malia’s boyfriend is “British…wonderful young man, and he was sort of stuck because there was a whole visa thing and he had a job set up. So we took him in and I didn’t want to like him, but he’s a good kid. The only thing you discover—this is not a surprise to you, Bill, because you’ve got a son—young men eat. It’s weird to watch them consume food. My grocery bill went up about 30 percent.”

Speakingto InStyle last month, Obama opened up about his daughters’ personalities.

“Sasha is, as Malia describes it, completely confident about her own take on the world and is not cowed or intimidated—and never has been—by anybody’s titles, anybody’s credentials,” he said. “If she thinks something’s wrong or right, she will say so. When she was 4, 5, 6 years old, once she made a decision, she would dig in and couldn’t be steered off it. I write about it in the book, how we were trying to get her to taste caviar when we were visiting Russia. She was like, ‘Mnn-nnh. No. Sorry. That looks slimy. It’s nasty. I’m not going to do it—even if I’ve got to give up dessert.’ And that part of her character has always been there.”

“And Malia, she is just buoyant,” Barack he went on to share. “She’s somebody who enjoys people, enjoys life, and enjoys conversation. She’s never bored, which is a badass quality that can take you places.”