Former first lady Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth have more in common than you might think! In Michelle’s new book, Becoming, the former First Lady explained that when she met Queen Elizabeth at the G20 summit in 2009, the two quickly bonded over both being tired and having sore feet. 

“The Queen then glanced down at the pair of black Jimmy Choos I was wearing. She shook her head,” Michelle wrote in her memoir. “‘These shoes are unpleasant, are they not?’ she said. She gestured with some frustration at her own black pumps.”

Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth
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“I confessed then to the Queen that my feet were hurting. She confessed that hers hurt, too. We looked at each other then with identical expressions, like, when is all this standing around with world leaders going to finally wrap up? And with this, she busted out with a fully charming laugh,” Michelle gushed in the book.

At the time, some royal fans gave the 54-year-old a hard time for hugging Queen Elizabeth during their meeting, but in her memoir, Michelle explained that at the end of the day, they were just “two tired ladies oppressed by our shoes.”

“Our interaction at the reception was caught on camera, and in the coming days it would be reproduced in media reports all over the world: ‘A breach in royal protocol! Michelle Obama dares to hug the Queen!'” she wrote of the viral moment. And though Michelle meant no harm by her simple gesture, she still knew that she did the “human thing” while talking with the Queen that day.

obamas and queen elizabeth
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“If I hadn’t done the proper thing at Buckingham Palace, I had at least done the human thing. I daresay the Queen was OK with it too, because when I touched her, she pulled closer, resting a gloved hand lightly on the small of my back,” she explained. Such a memorable moment!

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