20 Female Celebrities Who Have Happily Skipped Having Kids (PHOTOS)
Baby or no baby? That is the question. While many celebrities may feel the pressure of becoming parents as the world watches in heavy anticipation, they could easily opt out of it altogether. And it’s their right!
These 20 celebrities have decided to skip being mommies for different reasons, all valid -- whether it's because they never got the baby bug, prefer to focus on their careers and themselves, or haven't found a person they'd like to build a family. Long live choice!
Image via PG/Splash News/Corbis
Dita Von Teese
The burlesque dancer who was once married to Marilyn Manson is completely happy being a cool and stylish aunt to her sister’s children. “I was married to someone who was not cut out to be a father," she once said, "so I changed my views, adapted accordingly, and thought: ‘It’s OK not to have children.’”
Oprah Winfrey
Media mogul and lifestyle guru Oprah Winfrey recently opened up about the name she gave the premature baby she lost when she was 14, after being raped: Canaan. With a history of abuse at the hands of relatives, it's no wonder Oprah Winfrey chose not to have any more kids and focused on building a billion-dollar empire. In pursuing that career, she told the Hollywood Reporter, she realized "something [in my life] would have had to suffer," If she'd had kids, "it would’ve probably been them.”
Chelsea Handler
Funny woman Chelsea Handler has a very clear agenda for her life, and it does not include children. It really comes down to two things for Handler: She doesn’t feel she’s fit for the job, and she just doesn’t have the time. “I don’t want to have a kid and have it raised by a nanny,” she once said.
Rashida Jones
Rashida Jones no longer feels like “some sort of loser” for not being married or having children. She’s finally reached a place in her life where she’s OK with not being a mom and wife, but she says it took her a long time to get there.
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Janeane Garofalo
When it comes to parenting, Janeane Garofalo would rather stick to canines and fight off anyone's argument about her decision. "People think that you're a nasty, selfish person if you don't want to have children," she says. She and husband Brody Tate, consider their little furry friends their babies.
Rachael Ray
Since food guru Rachael Ray feels like she’s just “a borderline good mom to my dog,” having a baby isn’t in her plans. The famed TV chef isn’t only taking into account that she wouldn’t have the time needed to be a good mom, but she also considered how it’d take her away from the team she works with.
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz is a take-charge type of woman that won’t bend to societal expectations. "I can't see the future," she once said, "but one thing I do know is that I'm not childless. I have a ton of children in my life. I can have a kid any second, if I want. All my friends would be like, 'Sure, come and get them.'"
Lily Tomlin
Comedian and Grace and Frankie star Lily Tomlin made her decision to remain child-free early on in her career. “I like children, but I don’t really want to have any children and raise them,” she told Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show way back in 1973, stunning the audience into silence. She's stayed true to her conviction.
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Ashley Judd
Divergent actress Ashley Judd insists that procreating would be selfish, considering that there are so many children in the world that need love and care. “The fact is that I have chosen not to have children because I believe the children who are already here are really mine, too,” she wrote in her 2011 book All That Is Bitter and Sweet: A Memoir.
Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren and her husband Taylor Hackford decided against having children although they’ve been married for nearly 20 years. And the actress said she doesn't regret it one bit. “I never felt the need for a child and never felt the loss of it. I’d always put my work before anything,” she once told AARP Magazine.
Winona Ryder
Actress Winona Ryder admits she's questioned her child-free status. “I was talking to my dad and saying, ‘What if I can’t have a kid?’ and he said, ‘There are other ways to have children in your life.’ That’s true — and I get these amazing doses with my brother’s kids. But I’ve got to stop listening to other people.”
Jacqueline Bisset
She’s an accomplished actress and godmother to Angelina Jolie, but Jacqueline Bisset never became a mother. While she has confessed to feeling from time to time like she should have given it a try, Bisset has said that she is at peace with her decision.
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Margaret Cho
Comedian Margaret Cho once wrote on her website about how the sheer vulnerability of loving a child about how the sheer vulnerability of loving a child makes her hesitant to birth a one. “My child would have my heart completely, and having never truly given that over, in all my relationships in my life, starting with myself, I don’t even know where to begin.”
Dolly Parton
Legendary country singer and songwriter Dolly Parton and her husband never really wanted kids. "I think I became more productive through not having children," says Parton, who is Miley Cyrus's godmother and enjoys her siblings numerouds kids. "I never really had the desire to have them. My husband didn't want them either, so it worked out well."
Ellen DeGeneres & Portia de Rossi
For golden couple Portia de Rossi and wife Ellen DeGeneres, having children was never an option. While there was cause for reflection when in her mid-30s de Rossi started to question whether she should have babies or not, she decided against it. DeGeneres told Today that while she thinks she would be a good mom, "that's just not enough to have kids. I love kids, but they are a big commitment."
Renee Zellwegger
For Renee Zellweger “motherhood has never been an ambition.” The 46-year-old actress once told the New York Daily News that it’s largely due to her laid back attitude and focus on staying present instead of planning ahead. “I just take things as they come, each day at a time.”
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Kim Cattrall
Like her Sex and the City character Samantha, Cattrall does not have children. But don’t you dare call her childless. “I am a parent. I have actors and actresses that I mentor," she told BBC 4. "I have nieces and nephews that I am very close to. There is a way to become a mother in this day and age that doesn’t include your name on the child’s birth certificate.”
Jennifer Aniston
Sometimes, the best reason not to have kids is...well, none of your business. Jennifer Aniston married Justin Theroux in a secret wedding and she's similarly private about not having kids. "It's not something that is in our everyday lives, quite honestly," she says. "It's more questions that arise in a red carpet line or in an interview." The decision on procreating, she says, is "everyone's personal prerogative."
Lara Flynn Boyle
Lara Flynn Boyle says her reasoning behind skipping motherhood is very simple. She’s “a very selfish person. I love children and I love men, but I can’t commit to either for the rest of my life.” Boom.