Michelle Obama's royal sleepover

Michelle Obama has opened up about her experience of a 'sleepover' at Buckingham Palace, after being hosted by the Queen  on a state visit in 2011. 

Speaking at a MUSE event, hosted by Klick Health in New York, the former First Lady revealed that she wasn't nervous as she'd already built up a rapport with the royals.

'I think by the time we had the sleepover we had enough interacting with them,' Michelle, 54, explained. 'The surprising thing is folks wanted to be treated normally.

'Everybody is happy when all the people are gone. They want to be hugged. They want to be touched. They gossip.' 

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When asked if the cooking was better at the White House or Buckingham Palace, Michelle came out in support of her former home.

'I don't want to insult anybody, American food is just better,' she said, adding that the Queen has 'better china'.  

'Everything is gold. We had seen the gold room - there's a room where they keep all the gold,' she recalled.

'It was Sasha's birthday and the Queen opened the house and she let us see that room.' 

'During the state banquet, the plate that I thought was the charger, that was the plate. They put food on the gold charger.'

Obama enjoyed a hugely successful state visit to the UK in 2011, when he and his family stayed with the Queen.

After striking up a firm friendship, the couple received a warm welcome to Windsor Castle in April 2016 when they paid a flying visit to the UK. 

The Queen and Prince Philip discarded formalities and personally met the Obamas from their helicopter and the Duke of Edinburgh himself drove the couple up to the main house for lunch.  

Later, the couple enjoyed dinner with William, Kate and Harry at Kensington Palace where they were introduced to Prince George. 

Harry had already struck up a rapport with Michelle Obama who he teamed up with on a number of initiatives, including offering his support to her campaigns for girls' education and better support for military families.

And he met her husband in October 2015 when the royal visited the White House for a meeting to promote the Invictus Games. 

When the Invictus Games was held in Florida last year the two men struck up a hilarious viral rivalry to publicise the competition, Harry playing the trump card by invoking his grandmother, the Queen to appear in a short 'skit' with him.

The pair also attended this year's Invictus Games in Toronto this year, and were seen laughing together as they cheered on the athletes at the wheelchair basketball event.

An onlooker even reported hearing the former president asking Harry about Meghan Markle and whether she was enjoying the games. 

The royal was one of the many high-profile guests at the former U.S. president's first Obama Foundation Summit in October. 

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Obama offered Harry and Meghan his congratulations on Twitter when the couple announced their engagement in December and royal watchers are eagerly waiting to find out if he and Michelle are on the guest list for the wedding in December. 

However, royal sources suggested earlier this year that the former first couple would in fact be left off the guest list in an attempt to avoid a 'diplomatic row' with President Donald Trump, who is not expected to receive an invitation. 

'President Trump will not be invited because the wedding will be for friends and family only. It won't be a state occasion,' a source told the Daily Mail in January, adding that, in order to maintain the peace with the current president, Prince Harry and his fiancee were unlike to extend an invitation to the Obamas, despite counting them as friends.

'If Mr Obama was invited, the invitation could look like a snub to Mr Trump, and His Royal Highness would not wish to cause a diplomatic row,' the source added.  

In December 2017, Prince Harry himself commented on the speculation regarding invites, admitting that he 'didn't know' whether his friend Obama would be invited. 

'We haven't put the invites or the guest list together yet, so who knows whether he's going to be invited or not?' he said while guest editing Radio 4's Today show - during which he actually interviewed Obama as a guest. 

'I wouldn't want to ruin that surprise.' 

This article was first posted at dailymail.co.uk and was republished here with permission.