Inside Barack Obama’s Romantic Relationships Before Michelle

The former president proposed to another woman before he went on to marry Michelle.

May 8, 2017 9:59 am
Barack Obama at Harvard in 1990.
Barack Obama, graduate of Harvard Law School '91, is photographed on campus after was named head of the Harvard Law Review in 1990. (Photo by Joe Wrinn/Harvard University/Corbis via Getty Images)

While there have been movies made about Barack Obama’s early relationship with future First Lady Michelle before their marriage in late 1992, the public has known little about his prior relationships.

Until an article in this Sunday’s New York Post, that is.

Based on the book “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama” by David J. Garrow, the article portrays a youthful Obama as someone who was conflicted about his role as both a man and an African American, dating several women as he learned about himself and set early sights on the presidency.

One former flame wrote that she watched him become a “powerfully ambitious person” and someone “quite extraordinary” throughout the second half of the 1980’s.

He also had literary ambitions, penning prose to a different young woman: “I trust you know that I miss you, that my concern for you is as wide as the air, my confidence in you as deep as the sea, my love rich and plentiful,” he wrote. “Please comfort me with another letter when you get a chance.”

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