Former President Obama tells Bruce Springsteen about the time he punched a guy for calling him a racial slur

Yahoo Entertainment

It happened decades ago, but former President Barack Obama still clearly remembers the day someone he thought had his back called him a racial epithet.

“Listen, when I was in school, I had a friend. We played basketball together,” Obama told Bruce Springsteen on their new Spotify podcast, Renegades: Born in the USA. “And one time we got into a fight and he called me a c***. And I remember I popped him in the face and broke his nose.”

The move was an instant reaction.

“And he said, ‘Why’d you do that?” Obama recalled. “And I explained to him — I said, ‘Don’t you ever call me something like that.'”