Barack Obama Reveals How He Felt When Daughter Abandoned Last Name

Malia Obama is a hopeful filmmaker, but she is also adamant that she wants to achieve this on her own, not on the strength of the family name.

Malia’s movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, but her last name was missing in the credits.

Barack Obama recently revealed how he felt about the family surname being left off her film credit.

On My Own

I actually give Malia props for not wanting to cash in on her father’s name.

I can guarantee you that if people saw “Obama” in the film credits, interested or not, they would rave over the film.

Yet, when Malia debuted “The Heart” at the Sundance Film Festival, her name was only listed as “Malia Ann” in the film credits and promotional materials.

Obama recently opened up on this and how he felt about his daughter dropping the family surname.

He stated, “Her first film went to Sundance and all these fancy film festivals and she didn’t use ‘Obama’ as a director on the credits.

“I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are.’”

He continued, “And she’s all like, ‘You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association.’”

Obama continued that both of his daughters have resisted success via family name.

The former president continued, “I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that.

“The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all. I mean they’re very sensitive about this stuff. They’re very stubborn about it.”

Malia clearly has an edge against other kids getting into the industry because of the family name and contacts, I fully understand that.

But I do respect the fact she is trying to avoid praise simply because she is an Obama. It’s a far cry from what we usually see from celebrity children.