Year: 2009
Offense: In her 2018 memoir Becoming, the former first lady detailed the time she broke royal protocol while meeting Queen Elizabeth II, revealing that her majesty didn’t seem to mind the slip-up.
“Forget that she sometimes wore a diamond crown and that I’d flown to London on a presidential jet; we were two tired ladies oppressed by our shoes,” Obama wrote of their first meeting in April 2009. “I then did what’s instinctive to me anytime I feel connected to a new person, which is to express my feelings outwardly. I laid a hand affectionately across her shoulder.”
with ere two tired ladies oppressed by our shoes,” Obama wrote of their first meeting in April 2009. “I then did what’s instinctive to me anytime I feel connected to a new person, which is to express my feelings outwardly. I laid a hand affectionately across her shoulder.”
The moment was photographed and Obama received flack for the casual interaction. “I tried not to let the criticism rattle me,” she wrote. “If I hadn’t done the proper thing at Buckingham Palace, I had at least done the human thing.”
Obama continued, “I daresay the Queen was okay with it, too, because when I touched her, she only pulled closer, resting a gloved hand lightly on the small of my back.”