Barack Obama reveals Malia's name dropped from the short film's credits

Malia Obama used a pseudonym while screening her latest short film, which the former First Daughter worked on with Emmy Award winner Donald Glover, at film festivals.

In an excerpt of an interview posted on social media on Wednesday, Barack Obama is seen sitting down for an interview with Ryan Clarke Pivotal Podcastalong with former NFL hosts Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder. In a post on his Instagram page and X (formerly Twitter) post, Clark explains the context for this part of their conversation.

“President Obama's daughters, Malia and Sasha, will always be known as Michelle and Barack Obama's children. It sounds like the ultimate cheating, but it's something none of the girls want,” he wrote. “Malia didn't even use her last name while working on a project with Donald Glover. The former president went so far as to cut deals with the White House press to exclude them from scrutiny. There are still some photographers, but overall the girls are very tight-knit.

Clark tells Obama in the clip that his son plays football at Notre Dame, and in a recent article, he was asked about being the son of an NFL player. Clark paraphrases his son's answer, telling the former president that he told the reporter that he used to run away from her because the kids would say his opportunities only came about because of his father. Now that he's older, Clark's son said he's able to embrace his father's legacy because he understands “what it means to represent that name.”

Clark then asked Obama how much he admires his girls as they make their way in the world on their own merits.

“Our challenge is to allow us to provide them any assistance at all,” Obama replied. “They're very sensitive about this stuff. They're very stubborn about it. Malia, she makes movies, so she made her first movie. And you know, I'm going to be a father, and I'm going to brag a little bit… Her first movie went to Sundance and all these fancy film festivals, and she didn't use Obama as director in the credits.

It was revealed that Malia used the name Malia Ann in her short credit – Ann is the former first daughter's middle name. Her short film, the heart, TV on Radio stars Tunde Adebimpe, Latonya Borsay and John Wiegand. Its description reads: “An unexpected request and devastating loss draw attention to the intense and complex relationship between mother and son.”

Obama explained to the podcast hosts that he told Malia that he didn't think her secret would fly under the radar.

“I was telling myself, 'You know they're going to know who you are,'” he said. “And they're all like, 'You know what? I want them to watch it the first time and not have that connection in any way. So I think our girls are doing their best not to Try to take advantage of that.

Obama then explained that while his family lived in the White House, he made a deal with reporters there whereby they could follow him, talk about him, and do whatever they wanted as long as they did one thing: “Leave.” My children are alone. “Because they have the right to grow up,” the hosts recall.

“They didn't choose this, did they? Let them grow up,” he continued. “And to the press's credit, they left them alone. Now, as they get older, there are some things that the paparazzi photograph, and it drives them crazy, you know, because their attitude is, 'We “We're not looking for all that. So they're being punished.”

Hollywood Reporter Talk to Donald Glover about it the heart Project in an interview last April, where the TV star and writer was helping to produce her short film under his production company, Gilga. Malia graduated from Harvard in 2021, after helping the writing team at HBO girlslanded a writing job on the Glover-directed Amazon series swarm.