Barack Obama broke his classmate’s nose after being racially abused

Barack Obama has revealed that he once broke a classmate’s nose after being racially abused.

Speaking on his new podcastRenegade: Born In The USA, the former president said a friend had once called him a “c**n” in the changing rooms before basketball practice.

Reflecting on the incident, he remarked that the boy “might not even know” what the term meant but knew it was meant to be hurtful so he “popped him the face and broke his nose”.

When asked why he had punched him, Obama said: “Don’t ever call me that again.”

Obama’s podcast co-host, Bruce Springsteen, responded: “Well done.”

The podcast is a six-part Spotify exclusive and is the two friends, who met on Obama’s 2008 campaign trail.

In the first episode, they discussed their friendship while in the second, they focused on racial relations in the United States.

Last summer, Black Lives Matter protests dominated the headlines across the world, sparked by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. This sparked a dialogue about race relations in the US.

Obama was the first black president of the United States of America, starting his career as a community organiser in the predominately African-American South Side of Chicago.

His successor Donald Trump spurred on racist “birtherism” conspiracy theories that baselessly and falsely claim Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii.

Since leaving office in 2017, Obama and his wife Michelle have become more vocal about his experience of race in America.