New book claims Barack Obama kept seeing ex-girlfriend while dating Michelle
– New Obama biography claims he proposed twice to his ex-girlfriend
– When their relationship failed, they kept on seeing each other even after Obama started dating Michelle
– However, they ended all contact once Obama and Michelle got married A new biography on former US President Barack Obama claims that he proposed twice to his white ex-girlfriend, Sheila Miyoshi Jager.
The new book, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama by David Garrow, claims that Obama first proposed in 1986 but Jager’s parents put a stop to it, saying they were too young. Obama was 25 and Jager 23 at the time. The two however remained together before Jager started noticing “deep-seated need to be loved and admired” in Obama.
Jager, now 53 and a professor of Asian studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, told Garrow that Obama became “so very ambitious so very suddenly.” Garrow quotes her in his book as saying: “I remember very clearly when this transformation happened, and I remember very specifically that by 1987, about a year into our relationship, he already had his sights on becoming president.”
The book further claims that in order to realize his political ambitions, Obama sought to “fully identify as an African American” and believed having a non-Black wife would damage his prospects.
This put a strain on his relationship with Jager who has Dutch and Japanese roots, the book claims. When Obama gained acceptance to Harvard University, their relationship was at a low.
According to the book, Obama stopped all contact with Jager when he married Michelle
The book says Obama, in a desperate bid to save the relationship, proposed to Jager again but she turned him down. She felt that Obama’s proposal was borne “out of a sense of desperation over our eventual parting and not in any real faith in our future.”
The relationship appeared to have ended after the second rejection and Obama met Michelle at Harvard. However, Jager claims in the book that the two kept seeing each other on and off “for at least a year” while Obama was dating Michelle. Jager admits that she “felt bad about it.” However, the two ended all contact when Barack and Michelle Obama got married in 1992. David Garrow’s book is set for release on May 9.
Watch Barack and Michelle Obama on holiday in the video below.
