Mom Knows Best: Michelle Obama's Hilarious College Advice For Malia

Sain April 21, 2025

Every parent has their own way of offering wisdom to their kids as they head off to college. For Michelle Obama, her advice to her eldest daughter, Malia, was both lighthearted and humorous. In a recent interview, Michelle revealed the funny warning she gave Malia before she embarked on her journey at Harvard University. And guess what? Malia didn’t quite manage to follow it. So, what was Michelle’s sage advice? “Don’t wind up on Page Six,” the former First Lady joked, adding with a chuckle, “I don’t know if she managed that.”

Page Six, the famous gossip section of the New York Post, is the place where all things celebrity are reported, especially star sightings and happenings in the bustling city of New York. Malia, who graduated from Washington DC’s Sidwell Friends School in 2016, took a gap year before enrolling at Harvard, the same prestigious university where her mom studied law. During her gap year, Malia worked in the Big Apple, and sure enough, she made appearances in Page Six while interning for now-disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. It’s safe to say that Michelle’s advice didn’t exactly stick, but hey, who can resist the allure of New York?

Malia in NYC. (Photo Credit: Splash)

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Malia's Journey Through Show Business

Malia’s internship with Harvey Weinstein wasn’t her first foray into the world of entertainment. Back in 2015, she had a summer job working on Lena Dunham’s hit HBO series, Girls, which was filmed right in the heart of NYC. And even before that, she served as a production assistant on Halle Berry’s CBS show, Extant. Halle recently spoke about her experience working alongside the daughter of the 44th President of the United States.

“She was fantastic, she was amazing. I was such a huge fan of her. She is such a smart, beautiful, young woman. Look at who her mother and her father are, so of course, she’s incredible!” Halle reminisced. “She was down to do whatever a [production assistant] is asked to do, and I had wild respect for her for that. Everyone couldn’t really see her as just a PA, although she tried her best to be one. To her credit, she worked incredibly hard to fit into that role.”

Malia Today: Life at Harvard

These days, Malia is keeping a low profile as she lives in a dorm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and focuses on her studies at Harvard. While her parents are undoubtedly proud of her for attending such a prestigious university, her dad, Barack, recently admitted that dropping her off at college was an emotional experience akin to “open-heart surgery.”

He elaborated, “For those of us who have daughters, it happens fast. I dropped Malia off at college, and I was saying to Joe [Biden] and Jill [Biden] that it was a little bit like open-heart surgery. I was proud that I didn’t cry in front of her, but on the way back [home], the secret service was looking straight ahead pretending they weren’t hearing me as I sniffed and blew my nose. It was rough.”