Long after her tenure as the First Lady of the United States ended, Michelle Obama is still the gift that keeps on giving. Her latest offering is a documentary inspired by her bestselling memoir Becoming, and the Netflix project peels back the layers of the former FLOTUS's life before the White House.
In Becoming, published in 2018, Obama discusses everything from her childhood to her struggles being in the spotlight as the First Lady. In promotion for the memoir, she toured the United States and many different parts of Europe; sold-out arenas were treated to intimate conversations between Obama and celebrity friends like Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Reese Witherspoon.
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Obama's team gathered enough behind-the-scenes footage from the I Am Becoming tour to turn it into a full-length documentary. While many came to love her as the co-pilot on President Barack Obama's journey, the Becoming documentary takes viewers back in time to Michelle's origin story in southside Chicago.
Michelle's path began in Chicago, but it took her to Princeton University and then the Harvard School of Law. Long before she met her husband, the law student was charting a course of her own — she held high-powered executive positions in law firms, non-profit organizations, universities, and hospital boards before focusing her attention on Barack's fledgling political career in 1996.
"So little of who I am I happened in those eight years [in the White House]," Michelle clarifies in the trailer for Becoming. "So much more of who I was happened before."
Fans of Michelle have already pored over the details of her memoir (and listened to her narration in the audiobook), but the documentary promises to reveal even more about the icon. It is her story, in her own words — and it really couldn't have come at a better time.
Becoming will be available for streaming on Netflix on May 6. Watch its inspiring trailer, below: