Home » Latest » Celebrity » Malia Obama’s Boyfriend Comes From A Lot Of Money

Malia Obama’s Boyfriend Comes From A Lot Of Money

11

37 0 Celebrity

9.1

SaveSavedRemoved 3

A single kiss at the Harvard-Yale game turned a British undergraduate into a tabloid fixture overnight.

In late November 2017, cameras caught former First Daughter Malia Obama kissing a classmate in the stands of the annual Harvard-Yale football rivalry, and within days the internet had identified him: Rory Farquharson, a British freshman with a name most Americans had never heard and a family background reporters couldn’t stop digging into. What started as a college football weekend turned into a full audit of the Farquharson family tree, bank accounts, and boarding-school résumé.

• Farquharson entered Harvard with the class of 2020 after Malia took a gap year, and his father, Charles Farquharson, is chief executive of London-based Insight Investment Management Limited while his mother, Catherine, works as an accountant.
• The family’s home in Woodbridge, Suffolk — a six-bedroom detached house — is estimated to be worth around £1.6 million.
• He served as Head Boy at Rugby School for the 2015-2016 term, co-founded the school’s Blue Bunsen Society chemistry club, and appeared briefly in a video screened during the opening ceremony of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

The Kiss That Started It

Nobody at the Harvard-Yale game was looking for a scoop about international finance. But once photographers zeroed in on Malia Obama with a young man’s arm around her, identifying him became the story. Rory Farquharson’s name surfaced fast, and so did every detail his classmates and old schoolmates in England were willing to share.

From Rugby School to Cambridge Money

Before Harvard, Farquharson spent his teenage years at Rugby School, the English boarding institution that charges upwards of £35,000 a year and counts the invention of the sport bearing its name among its claims to fame. He didn’t just attend — he ran the place as Head Boy for the 2015-2016 academic year, played on the rugby team, and helped start the Blue Bunsen Society, the school’s chemistry club. He even popped up in a video shown during the opening ceremony of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

That résumé, paired with his father’s post running Insight Investment Management and the family’s £1.6 million home in Woodbridge, Suffolk, made him an easy target for profiles built around the phrase “comes from money.” It’s the kind of background that would have raised eyebrows regardless of who he was dating, but pairing it with the Obama name guaranteed the coverage.

A Palace Connection

Farquharson’s family tree runs deeper into British institutional life than just finance. His second cousin, Andrew Farquharson, served as a courtier and Assistant Master of the Household at Buckingham Palace under Queen Elizabeth II — a detail that gave the tabloids another angle beyond the investment-firm CEO father. For readers already tracking how royal family members and their extended circles intersect with public life, the Buckingham Palace tie only added to the intrigue.

He served as Head Boy at Rugby School for the 2015-2016 term while co-founding the school’s chemistry club and appearing in a video screened at the 2015 Rugby World Cup opening ceremony.

Going Quiet, Then Going Public

Once his identity was confirmed, Farquharson largely scrubbed his social media presence, a move consistent with someone trying to keep a low profile after being thrust into a spotlight he never applied for. It didn’t fully work. Paparazzi caught the couple together in New York City, London, and Paris throughout early and mid-2018, including a sighting at a Beyoncé concert alongside Michelle and Sasha Obama. Photographers also made a habit of snapping him smoking cigarettes outside university buildings and city venues, the same unglamorous candid shots that turned up in New York, London, and Paris, and even at that Beyoncé concert alongside Michelle and Sasha Obama.

Whatever comes next for the two of them, the paper trail on Rory Farquharson is already set: Head Boy at Rugby, a chemistry club he helped build, a Rugby World Cup cameo, and a family home in Suffolk that’s been appraised down to the pound. That’s a lot of specific biography for someone who, before November 2017, had never appeared in a single American headline.