While Barack and Michelle Obama wanted to ensure their daughters Sasha and Malia grew up as “normal” as possible, one way that they extended the perks of the White House into their everyday lives after Barack was no longer president was by hiring their own personal chef. They went with White House sous chef Tafari Campbell. However, Campbell’s life ended six years after Obama left office after a paddleboarding outing went tragically wrong. On the evening of July 23, 2023, Campbell was paddling out on the water near Barack and Michelle’s Martha’s Vineyard estate, and he was seen going under the water and not coming back up, which triggered a large, hours-long search.
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Sadly, it turned out to be a recovery operation and not a rescue one. In an update at the time from the Massachusetts State Police, his body was recovered on July 24, 2023. They also noted that Barack and Michelle weren’t at their house when Campbell drowned.
Tafari Campbell had a positive relationship with the Obama family
Tafari Campbell was paddleboarding in the Edgartown Great Pond, which is a popular area for paddlesports on the south shore of Martha’s Vineyard, when he fell off his board and wasn’t able to recover. Campbell’s body was recovered in around 8 feet of water about 100 feet from shore. A month after he drowned, his death was officially ruled accidental. He was not wearing a life jacket at the time of the accident.
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After news broke that Campbell had died, Michelle and Barack Obama released a statement about him and the impact he’d had on their lives. “When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House — creative and passionate about food, and its ability to bring people together. In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter,” as reported by AP News. The whole family, including Sasha and Malia, were close to many on the White House staff, but clearly Campbell held a special place in their hearts as their personal chef, post-White House.
Tafari Campbell left behind a family and a White House legacy
Tafari Campbell was first hired at the White House during the George W. Bush administration, and he was one of just a few chefs kept on for Barack Obama. Among other work in the kitchen, Tafari was a part of Obama’s White House home brewing experiment, which produced a White House Honey Brown Ale. According to the Obama White House archives, beer had never before been brewed on the grounds, and one of the ingredients used was honey from the White House gardens.
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Perhaps the saddest part of Campbell’s unexpected death is that he left behind family. He had two twin boys — Xavier and Savin — who he shared with his wife Sherise Campbell, the owner of Sweet Sage Baking & Catering, LLC. She posted a heart-rending tribute to her husband on Instagram after he died: “My heart is broken. My life and our family’s life is forever changed. Please pray for me and our families as I deal with the loss of my husband.”
