30 Celebrity Moms Who Had Kids After 40
From Salma Hayek to Christie Brinkley, these A-listers became proud moms post-40.
There are more than a few myths and misconceptions when it comes to the topic of infertility. The Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cites statistics that one in every ten couples aged 15-44 has trouble conceiving. And it's no secret that the older you get, the harder it becomes to naturally conceive (about a third of couples that include a woman over 35 have a problem with fertility). Yet the challenges that can go along with trying to conceive and have children at an older age are often obscured by the number of celebrities who give birth after 40—which can, in turn, perpetuate a belief that it’s easy to get pregnant later in life.
Ahead, we've highlighted 30 celebrity mothers who welcomed children in their 40s—some of whom have been candid in how they got there, others who have remained quiet. From countless cycles of IVF, to surrogacy, to just pure luck—here's some of our favorite A-listers who became proud moms, post-40.
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore gave birth to son Caleb in her late 30s. Her daughter Liv was born five years later, in 2002, when the actress was 41. In a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Still Alice star says she and husband, film director Bart Freundlich, keep their two (now teenage) children grounded. "They live a regular life," she says.
Naomi Watts
The mother of two boys, Sasha and Kai, whom she had at 39 and 40, respectively, Naomi Watts told People that she wished she and then partner Liev Schreiber had more children. “I should have had more kids, started younger,” Watts said in the magazine’s October 2014 issue.
Halle Berry
The A-list actress welcomed her first child Nahla at age 41, then gave birth to her younger son Maceo when she was 47. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Berry revealed that her second pregnancy in her late 40s (which she explained to be a "geriatric pregnancy"), was a total surprise. "I was, you know, on my way…this is probably way TMI, but I was really, you know, kinda premenopausal so to have this happen was a huge [shock]," she explained on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Susan Sarandon
Sarandon gave birth to her first child, daughter Eva Amurri in 1985, with Sarandon's then-boyfriend, Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri. A few years later Sarandon had two more children, sons Jack and Miles, with then-partner Tim Robbins, at 42 and 45, respectively.
When discussing her decision to have children later in life with Time Out New York, Sarandon said, "I wasn’t in a hurry, but I actually had a medical condition and was told I could never be a mother." Of her pregnancies after being diagnosed with endometriosis, Sarandon explained: "It was just such a freak [thing] that I got pregnant that I thought I can’t ignore this. And so I jumped."
Christie Brinkley
Christie Brinkley gave birth to her third child, daughter Sailor Lee, in 1998 when the model was 44 years old. Brinkley revealed that she and husband Peter Cook went through various miscarriages before they were able to get pregnant with Sailor, using IVF.
Pop Sugar reported that Brinkley revealed her pregnancy struggles in a 1998 interview with Good Housekeeping. "After the first miscarriage, I tried to take the attitude that it was my body's way of telling me that this pregnancy wasn't meant to be," she explained. "But after the second one, it was really devastating. Four months is a lot of living with that little life in you—thinking about it, eating right for it, nurturing it and all of a sudden, it dies. After the second one, we decided to try in vitro, because both Peter and I felt we couldn't handle another failure."
Nicole Kidman
The Big Little Lies star has been very candid about her struggles with infertility. The actress has been married twice, previously to Tom Cruise and currently to Keith Urban. Early in her marriage with Cruise in her twenties, Kidman suffered a traumatic ectopic pregnancy, which led to the couple's decision to adopt their two children, Isabella and Connor. She later suffered a miscarriage at the end of her marriage to Cruise.
When Kidman married Urban she thought she'd be unable to conceive naturally, but gave birth to her biological daughter, Sunday Rose, in 2008, when the Australian actress was 41 years old. Kidman has never discussed whether or not she used IVF to become pregnant, but in a 2012 interview with Australian magazine Who, reported by The List, she explained, "I've done all the stuff you can possibly do to try to get pregnant. So, the way it just happened with Sunday was like, 'What?' The percentages were so low. It is the miracle in my life."
Three years later, Kidman and Urban welcomed their second biological child, Faith Margaret, via surrogate. Despite a tumultuous pregnancy journey and four children, The Sun reported that Kidman said she would still love to have more children.
Brooke Shields
Brooke Shields and husband Chris Henchy had their second daughter, Grier, in 2006, when the star was 40. In the years prior to Grier's birth, Fertility Today reported that Shields and Henchy had immense difficulty conceiving; they tried multiple attempts of fertility treatments and rounds of IVF, with no success.
"I was about ready to call it quits," Shields revealed. "I was growing weary of the anticipation and the pressure, and Chris said he wasn't sure he could handle seeing me rip off another estrogen patch in frustration… At wit's end, we decided to try one more time," she recalls. After that final round of IVF, Shields became pregnant. She has been a spokesperson for Fertility Lifelines, a resource that provides information and support to women struggling with infertility.
Meryl Streep
The Oscar-winning actress has four children, the youngest of which she gave birth to in 1991, just before she turned 42. Streep has seemingly never gone on the record discussing her pregnancies publicly, so it’s unknown whether or not she struggled conceiving in her 40s, or before then.
Salma Hayek
“I thought I was going to need help getting pregnant, and I didn’t,” Salma Hayek told WebMD after she gave birth to daughter, Valentina, when the actress was 41 years old. In the 2009 interview, WebMD reported that Hayek's pregnancy was complicated by gestational diabetes, but despite a nauseous nine months, she said wouldn't trade the timing of her pregnancy: “I’m a more fulfilled human being now, and I probably wouldn’t have been 10 years ago. She gets a better mother for being born now.”
Jennifer Connelly
The actress was 40 years old when she and husband, Paul Bettany, welcomed their third child, daughter Agnes Lark. Connelly told Allure she wanted to be done with pregnancies after Agnes, "I knew that we were going to be done after number three," she told Allure in February 2014. "That's enough for us."
Rachel Zoe
In 2013, Rachel Zoe was 42 years old when she announced that she and husband Rodger Berman were pregnant with their second child, Kaius. In a 2013 interview with She Knows, Zoe revealed that her first son Skyler, who Zoe had when she was 39, was unplanned.
"It just happened," she said. "It was the best thing that has ever happened to me and Rodger unquestionably, and we just stare at him and love him more every second of the day, if that is even possible."
Before Kaius, Zoe explained that she was unsure if she would be able to get pregnant again. "If we are lucky enough to have another one, we will have another one," she explained to She Knows. "I think we are so blessed with Sky and [if] that is all we are supposed to have, then that is OK too."
Celine Dion
At 42 years old, after multiple failed cycles of IVF, Celine Dion gave birth to twin boys, Eddy and Nelson. The Grammy-winning musician struggled for six years to conceive, before enlisting the help of a fertility specialist and finally giving birth to her eldest son, René Charles, in her early 30s.
On trying to conceive again in her 40s, Dion told Good Morning America she wasn't ready to give up. "It's priceless,” she said. “So, you know what? We had a miscarriage. We tried [IVF] three more times. It did not work. ... We are trying again for the fifth try. It's aboard right now. All aboard," Dion said.
Eva Mendes
Eva Mendes became a first-time mom at the age of 40, when she and Ryan Gosling welcomed daughter, Esmeralda. Two years later Mendes became pregnant with their second daughter, Amada. In a 2014 article with The Violet Files, the actress explained how motherhood completely challenged her. “I’m completely exhausted,” she explained. “I thought my wild nights were over but these are some of the wildest nights I’ve ever had.”
Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger and then-husband Alec Baldwin had their only child, daughter Ireland, in 1995, when Basinger was 41 years old. The couple filed for divorce just over five years later.
Gwen Stefani
According to Us Weekly, in 2014 Gwen Stefani told Seth Myers that she thinks of her youngest son Apollo as a "miracle" baby, as she was 44 years old when she and then-husband Gavin Rossdale welcomed him to their family. In a 2015 interview with InStyle, Stefani revealed that the experience of getting pregnant in her mid-40s put her in "a whole new spiritual place."
Uma Thurman
Uma Thurman had her third child at 42, with her ex-fiancé Arpad Busson. The birth of her daughter, Altalune, came four years before the couple's messy divorce and custody battle in 2016/2017.
Iman
Iman gave birth to her first daughter, Zulekha, when she was in her twenties and married to NBA star Spencer Haywood. Almost a quarter of a century later, Iman married the late David Bowie and became pregnant again, this time at the age of 45. Her second daughter, Alexandria, was a "miracle" for Iman and Bowie. “People talk about the miracle of birth," Iman said in a 2009 interview with Parade following her pregnancy. "No. There’s the miracle of conception. I did IVF, but nothing happened. So, I began to think of adoption, and then I got pregnant. It was definitely a miracle.”
Geena Davis
The Oscar-winning actress gave birth to all three of her children after turning 40. Her daughter Alizeh was born in 2002, when Davis was 46 years old. She gave birth to twin boys, Kian and Kaiis, two years later.
Of giving birth in her 40s, Davis told Good Housekeeping in a 2006 interview, "I felt 100 percent that I would be such a better parent than I would have been even five years earlier and certainly 10 or 20 years earlier," she explained. "I'm sure there are younger people who have figured things out long before I did, but in my case, I became a parent with exactly the right person, at exactly the right time."
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