10 Female Celebrities Who Openly Share Why They Haven’t Had Kids

The number of women who have children in the US is gradually decreasing. In fact, 1-in-6 women approaching the end of their fertile years have never given birth, according to data from 2020. This scenario is also very present in the entertainment world, with many celebrity women who never had babies of their own. A few of them decided to open up about why they chose not to become moms.

Oprah Winfrey

• What she said: “If I had kids, my kids would hate me,” Winfrey revealed in an interview, where she pointed out she doesn’t regret forgoing motherhood for her career. “They would have ended up on the equivalent of Oprah talking about me — because something [in my life] would have had to suffer, and it would’ve probably been them.”

Dolly Parton

• What she said: Parton explained that she chose not to have children because she believed it was not her destiny to become a parent. Instead, she felt called to pursue other endeavors like the Imagination Library, a program that offers free books to kids until they start school. “If I hadn’t had the freedom to work, I wouldn’t have done all the things I’ve done,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t be in a position to do all of the things I’m doing now.”

Renée Zellweger

• What she said: “Motherhood has never been an ambition,” the actress stated in an interview.
  “I don’t think like that. I never have expectations like, ’When I’m 19 I’m going to do this, and by the time I’ve hit 25 I’m going to do that.’ I just take things as they come, each day at a time, and if things happen, all well and good. I just want to be independent and be able to take care of myself. Anything else is just gravy.”

Tracee Ellis Ross

• What she said: “I’m constantly asking myself questions, reminding myself, ’Are you making that decision for you or someone else?’ The husband and the babies are the expectation of what’s supposed to happen at a certain point,” Ross explained. “And I’m, like, ’I think there are a lot of babies, isn’t that part of what’s going wrong, there’s too many?’ Some people could be working on the world being a better place or just being happy.”

Mary J. Blige

• What she said: “I have nieces and nephews forever, and I’m always watching how people are scrambling around for babysitters. I don’t want to go through that,” Blige admitted. “I like my freedom. I like being able to get up and go and move and do what I want to do. I don’t want to have to tend to someone all the time.”

Helen Mirren

• What she said: “It was not my destiny. I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but I never did, and I didn’t care what people thought,” the actress revealed in a 2013 interview at 68 years old.

Kim Cattrall

• What she said: “I enjoy kids but not for long periods. I think they’re adorable and funny and sweet, and then I have a headache,” the actress confessed bluntly.

Ashley Judd

• What she said: “The fact is that I have chosen not to have children because I believe the children who are already here are really mine too. I do not need to go making ’my own’ babies when there are so many orphaned or abandoned children who need love, attention, time, and care,” Judd said in her memoir.

Lily Tomlin

• What she said: “I really do like kids, but there wouldn’t have been room in my life to raise children. I was so involved with my career, and I would have had to give up the career in large part because I could not possibly have shortchanged the child,” the actress confessed. “It’s hard to raise children and to do right by them. There are too many kids anyway. There’s too many people.”

Allison Janney

• What she said: “I think if I’d found the right guy at the right time and wanted to have kids, I probably would have with the right partner. Because I wasn’t ever really confident that I wanted to have kids, and I would rather regret not having kids than to have kids and regret it,” Janney told Drew Barrymore on her talk show.