President Barack Obama’s marriage soon to be over?

According to the National Enquirer claims, their 21-year marriage has dissolved in a string of ugly fights that were prompted by the Mandela memorial incident and — far more outrageously — Mrs Obama’s discovery that Secret Service bodyguards had been covering up infidelity on her husband’s part.

It’s an allegation the White House has declined to comment on, though after Bill Clinton’s trouser-dropping scandals, Americans would be rather less sanguine about any extra-marital activity than the French appear to be over President Francois Hollande’s behaviour.

Mrs Obama, the Enquirer claims, intends to stand by her husband until his presidency is over, at which time he will move back to Hawaii, where he grew up, and she will stay in Washington with their children

For the moment, they are allegedly sleeping in separate bedrooms after Mr Obama’s attempt to ‘mend fences’ backfired so badly on a recent Christmas getaway to Hawaii that he returned to Washington with their two daughters, leaving his wife behind.

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The National Enquirer, it must be said, quoted only anonymous insiders in support of these sensational claims, and is hardly the most reliable source of hard news. Obama advisers are certainly not talking as if there is any scandal in the offing.

 The couple are ‘role models for parents all across the country’, according to old friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett. ‘She’s at the top of her game. She’s fabulous at 50.’ Washington’s media has ignored the story. But everyone remembers how the Enquirer famously got it right when it claimed the supposedly squeaky clean Democrat presidential contender John Edwards had fathered a love child by a former campaign worker.

 Thin as its story may seem at the moment, might it be on to something again? At least it was right on one point — Mrs Obama did remain in Hawaii. The White House quickly offered an explanation, saying the extended stay had been a birthday present from her husband. ‘If you have kids, you know that telling your spouse they can spend a week away from home is actually a big present,’ said his spokesman.

Before returning home on Wednesday, Mrs Obama holed up for more than a week at TV star Oprah Winfrey’s spectacular 12-bedroom house on a mountainside estate on Maui, the second largest of the Hawaiian islands.