INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Michelle Obama said she felt anxious before giving her emotional New Hampshire speech in 2016 condemning Donald Trump for bragging about sexually assaulting women in a recording more than a decade ago.

The former first lady recalled that she wrote the outline of her speech addressing Trump’s comments on the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape while sitting in a waiting room as her mother was having back surgery. She gave the speech at an event in support of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“When I’m telling the truth, I’m not afraid,” Mrs. Obama said. “I was anxious about giving it. I know how I feel, and what I wanted to do at that time was take women to that place where we know how we feel when we are demeaned. We have all experienced that at some point in time. Women don’t have the platform to say it out loud.”

But Mrs. Obama also said that she had gotten to the point where she was less concerned about what people thought about her words. “It was also (Barack Obama’s) second term. I was like ‘I’m done with caring what people think.’ It’s time to put some truth out there.”

Mrs. Obama spoke Thursday at an event with “black-ish” actor Tracee Ellis Ross at The Forum near Los Angeles. She’s promoting her best-selling book “Becoming,” which was released this week.

Her memoir had one of the year’s biggest debuts, selling more than 725,000 copies on the first day Crown Publishing said on Friday.