Kate Walsh, Oprah and Other Childless Stars Speak Out
Mar. 23, 2011— -- With so much attention lavished on pregnant stars Natalie Portman, Mariah Carey and Victoria Beckham, the baby bump may seem like the latest celebrity accessory.
But there's a notable group of celebrities who are childless, either by circumstance or choice, and many of them have begun to speak out.
In the April issue of More magazine, Kate Walsh, the 43-year-old star of "Private Practice," expressed remorse for not having children.
"I feel like a loser," she said. "I would definitely love to be a parent. But I definitely don't think I want to do it on my own."
Walsh split from her film executive husband Alex Young in 2008 after only 14 months of marriage and a seven-month courtship. Their bitter divorce, splashed in the tabloids, was finalized more than a year later. The settlement included flipping a coin over disputed furniture and artwork.
"Oh my God. The worst thing ever. It was so public, and yet it was so legal-embroiled. You couldn't talk about anything," Walsh told More.
A year later, the actress is coming to terms with her failed marriage and her child-free lifestyle.
"Things are just going to go the way they go," she said. "I thought I'd be married and have three or four kids. I always knew I wanted to be an actress, but I think I always wanted a quote-unquote normal life because I had a very untraditional upbringing."
Walsh's life may not be the norm but she's certainly not alone. Here are four other child-free stars:
Oprah Winfrey
While Oprah Winfrey has long celebrated mothers as having the most difficult and important job on the planet, she finally decided that being a mom wasn't for her.
Last year, the 57-year-old talk mogul told ABC News' Barbara Walters that she and fiance Stedman Graham have no plans to marry and start a family, though they once considered adoption.
"Sex and the City" star Kim Cattrall, 54, also reconsidered her desire to have children.
In 2003, she told Winfrey's magazine O, The Oprah Magazine, that she had always assumed she would be a mother like her own mother.
"When I was 5, my fantasy was to have a hundred dogs and a hundred kids," she said.
But when she found herself single in her late 30s and exploring options for having a child on her own, she decided being a mom wasn't her destiny.
"I realized that so much of the pressure I was feeling was from outside sources, and I knew I wasn't ready to take that step into motherhood," she said. "Being a biological mother just isn't part of my experience this time around."
Cameron Diaz
At 38, Cameron Diaz has not ruled out having children but she supports women who do and has considered remaining childless herself.
"I think women are afraid to say that they don't want children because they're going to get shunned," the actress told British Cosmopolitan in June 2009.
"But I think that's changing too now. I have more girlfriends who don't have kids than those that do," she said. "And honestly? We don't need any more kids. We have plenty of people on this planet."
As for whether she wants children of her own, Diaz said: "I never say never. I don't know what's going to happen. I could end up adopting half a dozen kids, or I could end up being the next 'octomum'."
For now, Diaz is the doting aunt, who's happy spending time with boyfriend Alex Rodriguez's two girls. "I have three nieces and a nephew. I know what it's like. I've changed the diapers. I've seen three births, so I totally get the whole picture," she told Parade Magazine in May 2009. "I don't think it's a compromise to have children. I don't think it's a compromise not to. I think it's just a different choice."
She's still wrestling with her choice, however. Last June, she told In Style: "Having children changes your life drastically, and I really love my life. Children aren't the only things that bring you gratification and happiness, and it's easier to give life than to give love, so I don't know. That kind of change would have to be either very well thought out, or a total mistake -- a real oops!"
Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren has been with her husband, director Taylor Hackford, for 35 years, but long before then she decided against having children.
In a 2007 interview on Australian television, Mirren, now 65, revealed that she was deeply disturbed by an educational childbirth film when she was a teenage schoolgirl.
"I swear it traumatized me to this day," she said on the show, Enough Rope. "I haven't had children, and now I can't look at anything to do with childbirth. It absolutely disgusts me."
Asked if the film was the reason she never became a mother, Mirren replied: "I think it's a lot to do with it. I think in deep, proper psychological terms I was traumatized."
