15 Celebrities Share How Parenting Has Changed Them

While promoting her 2021 film Eternals, Angelina Jolie opened up about the realization she had early on with her eldest son, Maddox. "I became a mother in my 20s. Something happened to Mad when he was little; it was an injury, and I was terrified, and I heard myself say, 'It's gonna be fine, it's gonna be OK.' And I realized I had become the person who was always going to make everything OK, not the person who worries, who's upset that I have spent my whole life being in that darker space. That happens in a minute."

Angelina Jolie's Eternals costar Salma Hayek was also changed by becoming a mother. She's shared that motherhood showed her that she was tough but also that, "You will never be as vulnerable as you are when you have a child. Because of this, you have to be stronger than you have ever been."

For years, George Clooney was famous not only for being an actor but for being very public about his plans to never marry again and to not have kids. And then he met his now-wife Amal, and all bets were off! The two are parents to twins, and George has shared that becoming a dad has shown him that he needs to embrace the unexpected. As he put it, being a father has made him much more flexible. "Don't make plans. You always have to just enjoy the ride," he said.

Katy Perry thought she was a loving person before she had daughter Daisy, but she gained a completely new perspective after her arrival. "I never truly knew about unconditional love. Obviously my mother has that for me, but I didn't really experience it in the first person until I had my child — and that was just a whole other level," she told Variety in 2021.

Katy also discovered what a lot of us do: Becoming a mother means someone else's needs move to the top of the list. "It's just the biggest life change ever," she said. "You're responsible for someone's well-being who can't even hold their head up. It's a real shift, and you become not No. 1 on the call sheet."

Sometimes, becoming a parent makes a person realize the real impact that their own parents had on their life. For NFL star Tom Brady, being a dad has made him even more grateful to his own father. He got emotional when talking about his experiences with fatherhood in his ESPN+ docuseries Man in the Arena. "I'm a dad to some amazing children. When I think about being a dad, I think of him because of what my dad meant to me," he said. "I know I'm not as good a dad to my kids as my dad's been to me. I use them as my example of how to keep a family together and to care, to support, and how to love."

As an Oscar-winning actor, writer, and director, Ben Affleck has been a very career-driven guy. Having kids, however, has reportedly changed the order on his priority list. He claims that he is "definitely a father first." "My life right now is focused on, for sure, being a dad, and that's the most important thing to me," he told Access Hollywood in 2020.

Jennifer Lopez is the mother of twins and on the path to becoming a stepmother when she and Ben Affleck tie the knot (assuming they make it all the way down the aisle this time!). Jennifer has shared that being a mother "completely changed" her life. "It made me not only reflect on the person I wanted to be for them, it also helped me appreciate all the gifts my own mother gave me," she told People.

The British may be famous for having a stiff upper lip, but even the royals get more emotional after becoming a parent. "I never used to get too wound up or worried about things, but now the smallest little things, you well up a little more, you get affected by the sort of things that happen around the world or whatever a lot more, I think, as a father," father-of-three Prince William admitted in a 2016 ITV documentary.

For actress Emily Blunt, becoming a mother changed the kinds of movie roles she's inclined to play. In addition to turning down nude roles, she's also said that "playing violent or racist characters would be hard" for her now that she has two daughters, Hazel and Violet.

In discussing the ways that parenting has changed her, singer Adele was honest about the fact that sometimes we can miss the person we were before we had kids. "There are definitely a few elements of myself that I don't think I'll ever get back. More than anything, it's the freedom of being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Going somewhere and not having to prioritize someone else," she told The Face in 2021. "Whereas my No. 1 priority with everything I do since I had Angelo, which is in life, in work, is obviously my son."

For Prince Harry, fatherhood was one of the main drivers in committing to "breaking the cycle" of the parts of his family history that he feels were toxic. In his documentary The Me You Can't See, he explains, "My father, Prince Charles, used to say to both William and me, 'Well, it was like that for me, so it's going to be like that for you.' That doesn't make sense. Just because you suffered, that doesn't mean your kids have to suffer. In fact, quite the opposite. If you suffered, do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences that you had, that you can make it right for your kids."

There is more than one way to become a parent, and the truth is that being a stepparent can also be a totally transformational experience. Vice President Kamala Harris (known as "Momala" to her two stepkids) wrote movingly for Elle that becoming a stepmom to Ella and Cole Emhoff made her life bigger and richer. "I can say one thing with certainty: My heart wouldn't be whole, nor my life full, without them."

For many women, the path to motherhood includes the physical transformations of pregnancy and the amazing, ordinary miracle of giving birth. Nobody ever forgets what giving birth is like or how it can reveal so much inner and physical strength. As Beyoncé told Vogue, welcoming oldest daughter Blue Ivy was "the best day" of her life. "Right now, after giving birth, I really understand the power of my body. I just feel my body means something completely different. I feel a lot more confident about it," she said.

Matt Damon is a proud girl dad (he has four daughters with his wife of 17 years, Luciana) and being a father changed how he sees women entirely. "I never expected to be surrounded by girls. I'm learning so much, not the least of which is how much smarter girls are," he said on the Today show in 2012. "I operated under the assumption that us guys had a chance, but I realized when I was completely wrapped around my 2-year-old's finger, and she knew it. If they can do that to us at 2 years old, when they're fully grown we really don't stand a chance."

Kim Kardashian may be best known for her surface beauty, but the mother of four has said that being a parent changed her at the soul level. "You learn so much about yourself from being a parent, and you care more about the world you are raising your kids in," she wrote on Instagram in 2018. That change is part of what inspired her to get more engaged in criminal justice reform efforts, which is way more inspiring to us than any of her selfies.