“Now is the time for me to start asking myself these hard questions of who do I truly want to be every day.”

Michelle Obama has broken her silence amid rumours her and Barack were set for divorce. The former First Lady sat down to address the rumours with actress Sophia Bush on her podcast Work in Progress.

She revealed during the chat her decision to not accompany former US President Barack to President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, as well as President Donald Trump’s inauguration, were made for herself. The absences fuelled divorce rumours – and, as reported by the Mirror, this was only compounded by Barack’s admission he was in a “deep deficit” with his wife.

Ms Obama said: “That’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with disappointing people. I mean, so much so that this year people were, you know, they couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.”

She added: “That’s what society does to us. We start actually, finally going: ‘What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?’

“And if it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labelled as something negative and horrible.

Reflecting on having recently turned 61 on January 17, the former First Lady spoke candidly with the One Tree Hill star about how she wanted to spend her twilight years.

“So, you know, now is the time for me to start asking myself these hard questions of who do I truly want to be every day,” Ms Obama said.

“And I still find time to you know, give speeches, to be out there in the world, to work on projects.

“I still care about girls’ education. We you know, the library is opening in a year from now.”

In August, Ms Obama did appear alongside her husband at the Democratic National Convention where they gave their backing to failed Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

In her speech, Ms Obama admitted she struggled to come as she had been mourning her mother Marian Robinson’s death.