Michelle Obama is explaining how her husband, Barack Obama, proved himself to the family in a game of pickup basketball when they were first dating.
Michelle and her brother, Craig Robinson, opened up about the sibling rite of passage during an appearance on the new season of Kelly Ripa’s podcast, Let’s Talk Off Camera.
A star college player and NBA draft pick, Craig says he ultimately agreed to the basketball game to appease Michelle. The former first lady said it was a “huge step” for them all.
Michelle Obama is getting candid about the important relationship test Barack Obama had to pass when they first started dating.
Michelle and her older brother, Craig Robinson, are the first guests on the new season of Kelly Ripa’s podcast, Let’s Talk Off Camera, and in an exclusive sneak peek shared with PEOPLE, they open up about a sibling rite of passage.
“When she met Barack, she kinda liked him,” Craig, 63, teases his sister in the episode, which premieres at 5 p.m. ET on April 29. “She told us about him, but she didn’t bring him around right away.”
Related: Michelle Obama’s Brother Craig Robinson Thought She and Barack Would Last ‘About a Month’
Had their family known that Michelle’s then-boyfriend would go on to become the president of the United States, it probably would have gone a long way towards easing everyone’s anxieties. However, when they met in the summer of 1989, the couple were simply associates at the same Chicago law firm, where Michelle was tasked to be his mentor.
Michelle, 61, admits that she was “picky” about her boyfriends, and rarely brought them home to meet her family. “It wasn’t until I thought that they were presentable that they came around,” she shares in the exclusive clip.
Related: Michelle Obama Breaks Her Silence on Why She Skipped Trump’s Inauguration — and the Moment She Made the Decision
The day Michelle first brought Barack over to meet the family, Craig recalls sitting with their parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, on their house’s screened-in porch.
“I remember Mom said, ‘Ooh. At least he’s tall,’ ” he jokes.
That meeting led to the next family test: Michelle asked her brother to take Barack to play pickup basketball.
“[She said], ‘I know how you and dad always talk about how you can tell a guy’s personality by playing pickup basketball. Would you take him to play pickup basketball?’ ” Craig recounts. “She said, ‘Please, you gotta do this for me. I really like this guy. I wanna know what you think.’ “
Initially, Craig refused. “I was like, ‘No way. I am not doing your dirty work for you.'”
And Craig was hesitant for a good reason: As a student athlete at Princeton University, he was a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year and remains a top scorer in school history. He was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1983, and while he never officially made it to the NBA, he played professionally for two seasons in the U.K. before transitioning into coaching.
Craig Robinson was a two-time @IvyLeague Player of the Year and three-time league champion. He ranks 6th all-time in Princeton career scoring (1,441 points). Brother of fellow Princeton grad @MichelleObama, he is now the VP of Player Development for @nyknicks. #BlackHistoryMonth pic.twitter.com/yxe3DPEEuj
— Princeton Men’s Basketball (@PrincetonMBB) February 5, 2018
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All that to say, Craig played pickup basketball with “real dudes.” Ultimately, however, he caved to his sister’s request and put together a group that he thought her new beau would be able to play well with.
“He was absolutely appropriate,” he offers of Barack’s performance. “In pickup basketball… you can tell if a guy’s got some integrity, because if you foul a guy, you’re supposed to give it up to him.”
“He did that the right way,” Craig continues. “He took shots that he should take, and he passed the ball when he should. So I could tell he was unselfish.”
The best part, in Craig’s brotherly opinion, was that Barack didn’t defer to him during the game, in the hopes of getting in Michelle’s good graces. “That tells me that, okay, he can stand alone.”
“And so I reported back to Michelle, I said, ‘Listen. As far as I can see, he seems like a really decent dude. And he wasn’t a bad player at all,’ ” he recalls.
Related: Michelle Obama and Kylie Kelce, Both 5’11”, Agree That Tall Women Should Get Dibs on the Tall Guys
MIchael Reynolds-Pool/Getty
Barack Obama and his brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, chat at a women’s college basketball game
Her brother’s approval, Michelle admits, was a “huge step” in her relationship with Barack. The couple married in 1992 and are parents to two daughters: Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23.
“I liked that my brother respected him, and that helped me see him in a different light,” Michelle says on Ripa’s podcast. “We were very much a sporting family, and how you show up in sports actually matters. So I wanted to make sure that this guy was growing.”
Michelle and Barack’s marriage came under scrutiny in recent months, as the pair explore their lives as empty-nesters and former White House residents. Sometimes, this even means doing their own thing.
When the former first lady didn’t attend Donald Trump’s second inauguration ceremony at her husband’s side, gossip began to spread about potential bitterness, scandal and even marital discord,
Related: Michelle Obama Is ‘Not One to Pretend for Protocol’s Sake,’ Source Says About Her Skipping Trump’s Inauguration (Exclusive)
However, in an April 24 episode of her and Craig’s podcast, IMO With Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, Michelle said skipping the ceremony was simply “the choice that was right for me.”
“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she noted of the headlines surrounding the inauguration and her husband’s other solo outings. “It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do.”
Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa airs Tuesdays at 5 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy channel, and is available to stream wherever you get your podcasts.
Read the original article on People
