Parenthood Is Not for Everyone! See Ellen DeGeneres, Betty White and More Stars Who Never Had Kids

Betty White

Betty White told CBS This Morning that she “never regretted” not having kids because she has a “compulsive” personality. 

“I know that if I had ever gotten pregnant, of course, that would’ve been my whole focus. But I didn’t choose to have children because I’m focused on my career and I don’t think as compulsive as I am that I could manage both,” she said.

Kim Cattrall

Just like Samantha in Sex and the City, Kim Cattrall is all about her independence. The actress revealed why she never wanted kids in a 2003 interview with O magazine.

“When I was 5, my fantasy was to have a hundred dogs and a hundred kids. I realized that so much of the pressure I was feeling was from outside sources,” she explained. “And I knew I wasn’t ready to take that step into motherhood. Being a biological mother just isn’t part of my experience this time around.”

Lily Tomlin

Just like Betty, Lily Tomlin loves what she does and she never wanted to put her acting career on the back-burner. “God only knows what I would have done with them, poor things. I really do like kids, but there wouldn’t have been room in my life to raise children,” she explained to Metro Weekly in 2006. “I was so involved with my career and I would have had to give up the career in large part because I could not possibly have shortchanged the child.”

Helen Mirren

In a 2013 interview with British Vogue, Helen Mirren revealed why she never had kids. “It was not my destiny,” she explained. “I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn’t care what people thought … It was only boring old men [who would ask me]. And whenever they went, ‘What? No children? Well, you’d better get on with it, old girl,’ I’d say ‘No! F–k off!'”

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

Even though Ellen and Portia never had kids, the TV personality jokingly told Chrissy Teigen she wished she had them while quarantining amid the coronavirus outbreak. “I’m so bored,’ she laughed.

Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais has been dating Jane Fallon since 1982, but he’s never wanted to start a family with her. “Kids are sponges, they never give you anything back. They cost money, let’s keep all our money,” he joked during a previous appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. “Let’s get our money together and go across Mexico, throwing money out. You in the Mustang, me in the Volkswagen, just throwing money out! No one will have it!”

Renée Zellweger

Renée Zellweger has yet to welcome any kids of her own and she doesn’t plan on doing so in the near future. “Motherhood has never been an ambition,” she told the London Times in 2008. “I don’t think like that.”

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton has been married to Carl Dean since 1966 and they don’t have any kids together. However, that hasn’t stopped her from acting as a protective matriarch for her nieces and nephews.

“I grew up in a big old family with eight kids younger than me and several of my brothers and sisters came to live with me early on in my life,” she explained to People in 2014. “I’ve loved their kids just like they’re my grandkids, and now I’ve got great-grand-kids! They call me ‘Aunt Granny.’ Now I’m ‘GeeGee,’ which is great-granny. I often think, it just wasn’t meant for me to have kids so everybody’s kids can be mine.”

Tracee Ellis Ross

Tracee Ellis Ross wasn’t a fan of the societal pressures when it came to having children. “I’m constantly asking myself questions, reminding myself, Are you making that decision for you or someone else?” she asked during a 2018 interview with The Times. But when it all came down to it, the actress knew she didn’t want to contribute to the world being overpopulated.

“I’m, like, ‘I think there are a lot of babies, isn’t that part of what’s going wrong, there’s too many?’ Some people could be working on the world being a better place, or just being happy,” she said.

Rachael Ray

Rachael Ray has no time for kids. She’s all about her career! ” I have an enormous amount of hours that have to be dedicated to work,” she told Salon in March 2009. “For me personally, I would need more time to feel like I’d be a good mom to my own child. I feel like a borderline good mom to my dog. So I can’t imagine if it was a human baby … I feel like it would be unfair, not only to the child but to the people I work with.”

Christopher Walken

Christopher, best known for roles in The Deer Hunter, Catch Me If You Can and Pulp Fiction, was too busy with his Hollywood career to have kids. The Oscar winner said his iconic run in showbiz would have “absolutely not” been possible had he started a family with his wife, Georgianne Walken.

Christopher said he realized this when he watched fellow stars give up their careers after welcoming children. “I’m sure many of the kids I knew as a child would have continued in show business, but they had kids of their own, had to do something dependable,” he told The Guardian in March 2013. “I didn’t, so I could get by even in periods of unemployment.”