15 Celebrity Parents Who Opened Up About the Unique Experience of Surrogacy

After Rebel Wilson’s unsuccessful attempts at IVF — none of the 18 eggs she had harvested survived — the comedian and actress hired a surrogate to make her dream of becoming a mom a reality. But she struggled with the process, making the moment of her daughter Royce’s arrival somewhat startling.

“Having a baby via a surrogate is a bit different of an experience because in a way, you feel a little disconnected,” she explained to Today in December 2022. “Even though I had this gorgeous surrogate who was so loving and it was so awesome to get to do this with her. But then it’s not until the baby literally popped out — it was almost like a comedy scene — and then you hold the baby and cut the umbilical cord and … it was just amazing and so emotional.”

Paris Hilton very candidly shared that she used a surrogate to have her son because she has a fear of pregnancy and childbirth due to suffering sexual abuse as a teen at a Utah boarding school where she was held down and forced to submit to cervical exams.

“I’m just so scared. I think, again, leading back to Provo of even being in a doctor’s office, just all of that. The shots, the IVs that they put in,” she told Glamour UK in February 2023. “I want a family so bad, it’s just the physical part of doing it. I’m just so scared … childbirth and death are the two things that scare me more than anything in the world.”

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Bravo host Andy Cohen, who welcomed two children via surrogate, explained to Today‘s Hoda Kotb why he chose surrogacy over adoption when he decided to start a family on his own at age 50. After noting that it’s illegal for gay people like himself to adopt in certain places, he said using a surrogate seemed like the best route for him.

“I was fortunate to have the means to be able to. It can be expensive and complicated,” he told Hoda in 2019. “And I just said, ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to try to do this,’ and I did. It’s incredible to me as I’ve now learned that surrogacy is illegal in many states and I don’t understand why.”

After the birth of his daughter in 2022, he even gave a public shout-out to his surrogate. “Thank you to my rock star surrogate (ALL surrogates are rock stars, by the way) and everyone who helped make this miracle happen,” he wrote on Instagram.

Following the birth of her son, James, Sarah Jessica Parker turned to surrogacy when she was unable to get pregnant again. “We’ve been trying to expand our family for a number of years, and we actually have explored a variety of ways of doing so,” she told Access Hollywood after news broke in 2019 that she had twins on the way (daughters Tabitha and Marion) via a surrogate. “This was one of the things we discussed with seriousness that had real possibilities for us.”

But what should have been a beautiful experience sadly was a rocky one for Sarah after her surrogate’s identity was revealed publicly. “The most unsavory things have been done,” she said. “She’s had her phone hacked, her personal computer information hacked, she’s had threats against her and true harassment.”

After giving birth to her oldest two children, North and Saint, doctors told Kim Kardashian — who suffered from both preeclampsia and placenta accreta — that it would be dangerous for her to attempt another pregnancy. Though she was initially reluctant to use a surrogate, conversations with then-husband Kanye West helped sway her.

“After talking to Kanye, I think that I always knew that surrogacy was an option, but I didn’t think it was that realistic of an option. Now I feel like that’s my reality,” she said during an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

Kim and Kanye would go on to add daughter Chicago and son Psalm to their family with the help of a gestational carrier.

Neil Patrick Harris’ surrogacy process has an interesting twist. When his twins, Harper and Gideon, were conceived via IVF (an egg donor and a surrogate were used), he and husband David Burtka both contributed their sperm to fertilize the eggs. “We inserted one of my sperm and one of David’s sperm into two eggs with the hope that they would both take, just because we both wanted to be dads biologically, and both took miraculously,” Neil explained in a 2014 interview with Barbara Walters.

But neither he nor David knows which child is biologically theirs. “I have no interest in [finding out]. We are their parents, and I love them implicitly,” Neil insisted.

A brutal battle with infertility ultimately led supermodel Tyra Banks to choose surrogacy. The former Dancing With the Stars host spent more than a year doing seven back-to-back IVF cycles that all failed, and it took a huge toll on her physical and mental health. It didn’t help that people were constantly pestering her about when she was going to have a baby.

“I’m so tired of seeing on my social media, ‘Why don’t you have kids? Why don’t you have kids?’ You don’t know what I’m going through — you have no idea,” she said on her talk show FABLife in 2015.

A surrogate helped her bring her son, York, into the world in 2016, and Tyra made sure to give her a special shout-out on Instagram: “As we thank the angel of a woman who carried our miracle baby boy for us, we pray for everyone who struggles to reach this joyous milestone.”

Fast & Furious star Jordana Brewster felt confident in her decision to use a surrogate for both of her sons, but was a bit uncomfortable sharing the news publicly. “But I didn’t really have a choice about being open since it was obvious I wasn’t pregnant,” she told Yahoo Parenting in 2015. “For me, it wasn’t a choice; I needed to use a surrogate. But I didn’t feel judged. It’s more like I felt awkward.”

She also admitted to feeling a little FOMO because she couldn’t experience being pregnant with her boys. “Sometimes I feel a little left out when other moms talk about what their birth experience was like, and I feel the loss of not having carried or having been able to carry,” she said, touching on a common emotion for moms who use surrogates.

Like Jordana Brewster, Modern Family star Elizabeth Banks — who has two sons — also felt sadness about not being able to carry a pregnancy herself. But talking to other parents helped her gain a new perspective. “It helps that other moms had said that once they had their babies, they forgot they were ever pregnant,” she told Women’s Health in 2012. “So once my focus became the baby and not the pregnancy, it was a very easy decision.”

Khloé Kardashian’s son was born via surrogate in July 2022, and the reality TV star said her “control freak” ways made the experience extremely challenging. She found herself wanting to micromanage the situation since she wasn’t the one pregnant herself. “You’re a stranger, I just have to trust you,” she explained of her surrogate during a 2022 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “I love my surrogate — she was amazing. But I’m still like, ‘I need you sitting next to me all the time. What are you doing? What are you eating?'”

More from Mom.com: Khloé Kardashian May Have Named Her Son Tristan Jr.

When CNN anchor Anderson Cooper announced the birth of his son Wyatt on Instagram in 2020, he got emotional as he thanked his surrogate for helping him become a dad. “As a gay kid, I never thought it would be possible to have a child, and I’m grateful for all those who have paved the way, and for the doctors and nurses and everyone involved in my son’s birth,” he wrote. “Most of all, I am grateful to a remarkable surrogate who carried Wyatt, and watched over him lovingly, and tenderly, and gave birth to him. It is an extraordinary blessing — what she and all surrogates give to families who can’t have children.”

Hilaria and Alec Baldwin threw everyone for a loop in March 2021 when they announced that they had welcomed daughter Maria Lucia — just six months after Hilaria gave birth to their son Eduardo. It wasn’t clear at the time whether MariLu was adopted or born via a surrogate. Hilaria later said she kept quiet about it because she knew people would criticize and judge her. “The surrogacy route, they say, ‘Oh that’s the easy way to have babies,'” she explained on her Witches Anonymous podcast (via People). “Anyone who has done IVF, egg retrieval, any of it, it is not easy. It is painful.”

She also refuted the notion that there’s a difference in her bond with MariLu because she didn’t carry her. “I don’t have a difference between my daughter who was born via surrogacy and my six other children that I carried. There’s no difference,” she said. “People assume that I’m less of a mom and she’s less my daughter. Somebody questioning your authenticity as your child’s mom ….”

Kandi Burruss enlisted the help of a surrogate to bring daughter Blaze into the world in 2019, but the Real Housewives of Atlanta star struggled with the decision at first. “We were just trying to figure out like, OK, should we do this? How can you trust somebody with your most precious possession, your most precious gift — somebody you barely know?” she said on the We Are Family podcast.

But she has zero regrets. “Now that it’s all said and done, I wouldn’t change a thing. It was the best decision that we could have made,” she said, adding that her surrogate — who had carried for another family before — taught her a lot about the process and helped ease her concerns. “Once I got comfortable, then I started really appreciating the fact that she was doing the heavy lifting.”

In a candid interview with Women’s Health in 2019, Gabrielle Union — who shares daughter Kaavia with husband Dwyane Wade — said she had a difficult time warming to the idea of using a surrogate, not only because it made her feel “inadequate” but because she worried about being judged. “There’s nothing more that I wanted than to cook my own baby … the idea of [surrogacy] felt like surrendering to failure,” she said. “People want to see the bump, hear that you got hemorrhoids — they want to know you’re like them,” she explained. “I was like, “This is going to seem like the most Hollywood sh– ever. Will I be embraced as a mom?'”

As she explored the process of surrogacy, however, she found herself getting excited, including selecting a surrogate with a certain key trait that would help her bond with her. “Some people care about the race, religion, or food habits of their surrogate. I was like, ‘I want a reader,'” said Gabrielle, who is a big book lover.

After Priyanka Chopra and husband Nick Jonas announced the birth of their daughter, Malti, in 2022, people were quick to criticize the couple for using a surrogate. Priyanka admitted that the online chatter was difficult to bear. “I’ve developed a tough hide when people talk about me,” she told British Vogue in February 2023. “But it’s so painful when they talk about my daughter. I’m like, ‘Keep her out of it.'”

She also shared that her use of a surrogate was medically necessary. “I had medical complications,” she explained. “This was a necessary step, and I’m so grateful I was in a position where I could do this. Our surrogate was so generous, kind, lovely, and funny, and she took care of this precious gift for us.”