--- title: Michelle Obama Met the Little Girl Who Loved Her Portrait description: Michelle Obama has met the little girl from the viral picture of her gazing at the former first lady's portrait. canonical: https://time.com/5188202/michelle-obama-meets-little-girl-looking-at-portrait/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-06T20:09:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T09:01:42.363Z og:title: Michelle Obama Met the Viral Toddler Who Loved Her Portrait og:description: "Keep on dreaming big for yourself" og:url: https://time.com/5188202/michelle-obama-meets-little-girl-looking-at-portrait/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf39430ad98df3beb/698929e58fd2eeec2e35aec2/michelle-obama-meets-viral-toddler-looking-at-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-ART-HERITAGE-OBAMA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Michelle Obama Met the Viral Toddler Who Loved Her Portrait twitter:description: "Keep on dreaming big for yourself" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf39430ad98df3beb/698929e58fd2eeec2e35aec2/michelle-obama-meets-viral-toddler-looking-at-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Michelle Obama Had a Dance Party With the Little Girl Who Went Viral For Admiring Her Portrait > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=94c3cb97-6e30-4891-9df3-c8bdeef1ad35&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Cutest Dance Party Ever? See Michelle Obama Meet the Little Girl Who Admired Her Portrait [Watch (HLS stream): Cutest Dance Party Ever? See Michelle Obama Meet the Little Girl Who Admired Her Portrait](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5onaZxTV.m3u8) (1:12)  _Published 2018-03-06. Last week, two-year-old Parker Curry was captivated by the dramatic new portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C._  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Mar 6, 2018 8:09 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Mar 6, 2018 8:09 PM UTC Parker Curry, a two-year-old visitor to the [National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.](http://time.com/5143747/obama-presidential-portrait-kehinde-wiley/), became a viral sensation last week after a photo of her gazing adoringly at [the official portrait of Michelle Obama](http://time.com/5158961/obama-portrait-kehinde-wiley-amy-sherald-interview/) by Baltimore artist Amy Sherald collectively won the hearts of the entire Internet. The heartwarming moment from the tiny art connoisseur — which earned a co-sign from Sherald herself, who re-posted the image on her Instagram account — garnered such a response that it led to the little girl meeting her hero Michelle Obama in real life, a meet-up that led to an impromptu dance party and some encouraging words from the former first lady. In a post on Instagram, Michelle Obama shared that she had met Parker and included a picture with the little girl and a video of the two of them dancing to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” The caption that Obama includes with the post encourages little Parker to follow her dreams. “Parker, I’m so glad I had the chance to meet you today (and for the dance party)!,” Obama wrote. “Keep on dreaming big for yourself…and maybe one day I’ll proudly look up at a portrait of you!” In an interview with [_CNN_](https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/michelle-obama-portrait-girl-parker-curry/index.html), Parker’s mother Jessica shared that Parker’s awe-struck moment in front of Obama’s portrait was extremely powerful because of why Parker loved the portrait so much. “In further discussion with (Parker) yesterday and today, I realized that she believes Michelle Obama is a queen, and she wants to be a queen as well …,” Jessica Curry said. “As a female and as a girl of color, It’s really important that I show her people who look like her that are doing amazing things and are making history so that she knows she can do it.” See Michelle Obama meet Parker Curry below. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5188202/michelle-obama-meets-little-girl-looking-at-portrait/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5188202/michelle-obama-meets-little-girl-looking-at-portrait/"},"headline":"Michelle Obama Had a Dance Party With the Little Girl Who Went Viral For Admiring Her Portrait","datePublished":"2018-03-06T20:09:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-12T09:01:42.363Z","description":"\"Keep on dreaming big for yourself\"","url":"https://time.com/5188202/michelle-obama-meets-little-girl-looking-at-portrait/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf39430ad98df3beb/698929e58fd2eeec2e35aec2/michelle-obama-meets-viral-toddler-looking-at-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf39430ad98df3beb/698929e58fd2eeec2e35aec2/michelle-obama-meets-viral-toddler-looking-at-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-ART-HERITAGE-OBAMA","caption":"US-POLITICS-ART-HERITAGE-OBAMA","creditText":"SAUL LOEB—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5188202/michelle-obama-meets-little-girl-looking-at-portrait/","name":"Michelle Obama Had a Dance Party With the Little Girl Who Went Viral For Admiring Her Portrait"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Cutest Dance Party Ever? 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