Sasha Obama enjoyed a quiet weekend in Los Angeles as she soaked up the late summer sun with a book and a cigarette on Saturday.
Looking casual in a purple off-the-shoulder top and easy-fitting white pants, the former first daughter stood out from other parkgoers as she relaxed in a striped folding chair.
Complementing the look with owlish glasses, she appeared engrossed in a Daniel Quinn novel as she drank from a hunter green Hydro Flask, occasionally breaking away to look at her phone.
Blocking out distractions with a pair of $550 Airpods Max headphones, the 22-year-old kept it natural with minimal makeup, and her long, braided brown locks were pulled back into a ponytail.
The 1996 novel – The Story of B – tells the story of a Catholic priest who is sent on his orders to spy on a charismatic environmentalist who they believe is the Antichrist and whom they ultimately try to kill.
Curious: Sasha Obama appears engrossed in a novel as she relaxes in an LA park on Monday
But there’s always time for a cheeky cigarette and a glance at the phone on a sunny day
The former first daughter looked casual and relaxed as she strolled across the grass for a day at the park
Sasha, 22, has often been spotted out and about after graduating from USC, as proud parents Barack and Michelle Obama looked on in May.
But her parents have seen little of each other since Michelle enjoyed a long summer holiday with friends Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg on the director’s new $250 million superyacht as it sails around the Mediterranean.
And the couple were thousands of miles apart when they celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary on October 3.
But they did post a splashy anniversary tribute to each other on social media, with Barack describing the former First Lady as “brilliant, kind, funny and beautiful.”
She, in turn, uploaded a photo of her and her husband posing in front of the backdrop of a city for more than thirty years.
“31 years and a lifetime ago,” she wrote.
“I love going through life with you by my side, @BarackObama. Happy birthday, darling.”
On Thursday, the couple’s youngest daughter was spotted working up a sweat on a treadmill at a gym in downtown Los Angeles and a few days earlier she was spotted handing over her car keys to a Subaru dealership in the city.
Daniel Quinn’s 1996 novel tells the story of a Catholic priest whose faith is tested when he is sent to spy on a charismatic environmentalist
Wearing $550 Airpods Max headphones to block out distractions, the 22-year-old appears oblivious to her surroundings as she enjoys her book
Her sneakers are off as she leans back in her low-slung folding chair under the shelter of a tree
Sasha has followed in the footsteps of her older sister, Malia Obama, 25, who moved to LA to pursue a career as a screenwriter after graduating from Harvard University in 2021.
The pair now share an apartment, despite mum Michelle revealing ‘there was a period when they couldn’t stand each other’.
“What I love most is that those two girls are each other’s best friends,” she told Today hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager in November.
“I said, wait a minute, you’re going to wake up one day and you’re going to look at that other person, and you’re going to know that the two of you share something very unique, especially considering what they’ve been through,” she explained.
“To see them in a place where they are supportive and supportive of each other, that’s something a mother would want.”
But both daughters have been repeatedly caught smoking, a habit they may have picked up during their father’s lengthy attempts to kick the habit.
Barack, 62, started smoking as a teenager and famously promised his wife, Michelle, 59, that he would quit before campaigning for president.
In 2009, he admitted during a press conference: ‘As an ex-smoker, I suffer from it all the time.
‘Did I fall off the wagon? Yes. Am I a daily smoker or a constant smoker? No. I don’t do it in front of my kids. I don’t do it in front of my family.
“And you know, I’d say I’m 95 percent healed, but there are times when I mess up.”
The sociology graduate seems to be making short work of her paperback as the shadows grow longer
The 22-year-old kept it natural with minimal makeup, and her long, braided, brown locks were pulled back into a ponytail
The former White House resident goes unrecognized by her fellow park users as she sits in the shade
A bottle, a phone and a comfortable chair make for a perfect afternoon in the park
Another check of the phone, because the book is temporarily abandoned for a newer medium
The former president appears to have dismissed claims that he had gay sex with cocaine after con man Larry Sinclair claimed the future president had oral sex with him twice in Chicago in 1999.
Sinclair — who has a lengthy criminal history, including convictions for forgery, fraud and theft, and has served prison time in Arizona, Florida and Colorado — first made the claims in 2008, as Barack was preparing to run for the presidency.
But the claims were revived in August when The New York Post published a letter Barack wrote to his girlfriend Alex McNear in 1982, when he was 21 years old.
In it, he wrote that he “loves making love to men every day, but in the imagination,” according to the publication.
