CULTURE

Michelle Obama Had Two Words for Donald Trump’s 2017 Inauguration: “Bye, Felicia”

She looked back on the whirlwind day with Jimmy Fallon this week.


Michelle Obama at Donald Trump's 2016 inauguration
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

You may recall the awkward moment nearly two years ago, on the day of Donald Trump‘s January 2017 inauguration, when Barack and Michelle Obama greeted Donald and Melania Trump outside the White House, and the outgoing FLOTUS was forced to juggle a cumbersome Tiffany & Co. box—a gift from the Trumps—while posing for formal photographs. Obama has since shared her thoughts on that particular moment of Inauguration Day, but it wasn’t until this week that she unpacked her emotions about the rest of that fateful day.

On Tuesday’s episode of The Tonight Show, host Jimmy Fallon showed Obama a photo of her and her husband standing at the door of Air Force One and waving goodbye after the inauguration ceremony had come to a close, and asked her to describe how she was feeling in that moment. “It’s like, ‘Bye, Felicia!'” Obama quipped, prompting cheers from the audience and a lengthy drum sting from the Roots.

“Is that what was going through your mind?” Fallon asked, after regaining his composure.

“A lot was going on that day,” she said. “That was a day. And right before that, you know, my daughters’ friends decided they needed a sleepover for the last day. I was like, ‘Are you guys kidding me? We’re leaving! You gotta take all your stuff, pick it up, the blankets, the bears’—they were all crying—it was like, ‘Get out, we’ve gotta go!'” she explained. “So, there was that, and then the Tiffany’s box. It was just all, you know, a lot.”

Earlier this year, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Obama described why, exactly, that moment with the signature blue box (which contained a “lovely” picture frame, for the record) was so awkward. “Well, there’s all this protocol. I mean, this is like a state visit, so they tell you that you’re going to do this, they’re going to stand here. Never before do you get this gift, so I’m sort of like, ‘OK…. What am I supposed to do with this gift?'” she said. “Everyone cleared out, and no one would come and take the box. And I’m thinking, ‘Do we take the picture with it?'” Luckily, Barack “saved the day” by taking the box off her hands, so she wasn’t forced to stash it in some bushes beside the White House and say “bye, Felicia” to that, too.

Related: Michelle Obama’s Hair Evolution: Elegant, Presidential and Always Inimitably Fabulous

Michelle Obama’s Hair Evolution: Elegant, Presidential and Always Inimitably Fabulous

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