Obama reveals White House stress had him smoking 8 or 9 cigarettes a day

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images))

published 12 November 2020

There's no question that being the president is a stressful job, former President Barack Obama just had an unhealthy way of dealing with it.

In his forthcoming memoir, obtained Thursday by CNN, Obama reveals he didn't actually stop smoking when he entered the White House. In fact, the stress of the job led him to sometimes smoke eight or nine cigarettes a day, and he often sought out a "discreet location to grab an evening smoke," Obama writes.

While Obama did say in 2009 that he'd mostly quit smoking early in his presidency, he admitted he sometimes broke down and smoked occasionally. Obama later said first lady Michelle Obama had led him to quit, but Michelle said it was mostly because of his daughters. In his memoir, Obama reveals the latter is true. When his daughter Malia "frowned" after "smelling a cigarette on my breath," Obama began "ceaselessly" chewing nicotine gum to break the habit for good.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.