It’s not every day you see a former first lady drop her guard.

But that’s exactly what Michelle Obama did during a public event in New York on the weekend.

The 54-year-old didn’t pull any punches when serving up her opinion on work-life balance and marriage equality for women, saying the idea that women can have it all is untrue because “that s--t doesn’t work all the time.”

“Marriage still ain’t equal, y’all,” Obama reportedly said at a public event to promote her new memoir, Becoming, in Brooklyn on Saturday.

“It ain’t equal. I tell women that whole ‘you can have it all’ … mmm, nope, not at the same time, that’s a lie. It’s not always enough to lean in because that s--t doesn’t work all the time.”

Obama appears to have been disagreeing with a feminist philosophy shared by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg in her book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which urges women to be more ambitious.

According to several media outlets, Obama quickly apologised for swearing, telling the crowd: “I thought we were at home, y’all. I was getting real comfort
Meghan Markle has also been given some words of advice from the former First Lady of the United States as she deals with claims of a royal feud and a series of leaks that have led to damaging headlines.

Obama said she thought Meghan, 37, was doing things too quickly and urged her to slow down.

“Like me, Meghan probably never dreamt that she’d have a life like this, and the pressure you feel — from yourself and from others — can sometimes feel like a lot,” she told Good Housekeeping magazine.

To combat that, the Duchess of Sussex should not be afraid to play a longer game.

“So my biggest pieces of advice would be to take some time and don’t be in a hurry to do anything. I spent the first few months in the White House mainly worrying about my daughters, making sure they were off to a good start at school and making new friends, before I launched into any more ambitious work.”