Celebrities sometimes seem like they have the ability to hold back time. Whether it's down to a good plastic surgeon, a great diet, a high impact workout regimen or all three, some of them still look like they're in their 30s when in reality they're a long way past 50.
That power of preserving youth might apply to more than just their faces. In recent years we've seen a trend for celebrity mothers to hold off on having children until they're 40, along with some who've hit 40 and carried on having children like nothing changed. They break biology's rules.
What's their secret? Are famous people just more fertile than us? Or is it just that all that money can pay for exceptional medical care? Whatever causes it, here's our list of fifty celebrity mothers who've had children at the age of forty or above, proving it's never too late!
Nicole Kidman is somebody who's spoken candidly about her issues with having children in the past. At one point she feared that it would never happen for her at all. At ectopic pregnancy early in her marriage to Tom Cruise; when Kidman was still in her twenties; was at one point thought to have left her unable to have children. The couple was so sure that it wasn't on the cards for them that they adopted instead.
She was therefore as surprised as anybody when she became pregnant during her second marriage, to Keith Urban, in 2008. She was 41 at the time and stated that having tried 'everything' to get pregnant in the past, this time it just happened naturally with no medical or external help required at all. Three years later, at 44, the couple welcomed their second child. Kidman describes them as a blessing and a miracle.
In contrast to Nicole Kidman, Geena Davis was never even sure that she wanted children until she reached her forties. She was very busy acting and has gone on record as saying she was unsure of herself and what she wanted from life all the way through her 20s and her 30s.
By the time she decided that actually, she really would like to be a mother after all, she was well into her forties. When her daughter was born in 2002, Davis was already 46. She didn't stop there, though; two years later at the age of 48 she gave birth to twins. At an age where most people are starting to at least consider what their retirement might look like, Davis was welcoming new life into the world! She has no regrets about waiting whatsoever, believing that she wasn't with the right person to have children with until the precise moment it happened.
Hollywood icon Susan Sarandon actually had her first child when she was under 40; but only just. She was 39 when her daughter Eva Amurri was born in 1985. Having started a family, she decided to expand it, and so gave birth to two sons in the years to come; one at the age of 42, and another at 45, all with her former partner, the actor Tim Robbins.
Sarandon is another woman who'd been told that her prospects of having children weren't good. She was diagnosed with endometriosis when she was younger, and so hadn't concerned herself with family planning because she'd long since accepted it would never happened. When she became pregnant she considered it such an unlikely event that it would never happen again, but time proved her wrong in the most wonderful way. And it did it twice!
This is probably one of the better known cases of later-life pregnancy on this list; anybody who's familiar with Halle Berry's career will know about her private life and her situation when it comes to children; she was a Hollywood sex symbol of the 90s and 00s, and speculation and gossip about her was tabloid fodder for years.
Berry was 41 when she had her first child, a daughter named Nahla, who was planned. She wasn't intending on adding to her family, but it happened quite by accident at the age of 47 with the birth of her son, Maceo. Speaking on Ellen DeGeneres's show, Berry explained that the second pregnancy was a total shock. In fact, it should have been biologically impossible; Berry was experiencing early pre-menopausal symptoms at the time, so getting pregnant was the last thing she expected to happen.
Rachel Zoe is the archetypal fashionista, so if having children in your 40s is either popular or fashionable now, we can probably credit that fact to her. She has, after all, done it herself. She's another mother who managed to get her first child in just before 40, at 39, and she says even that was unplanned. There was no 'Rachel Zoe Project' to start a family; nature just took its course! She named her surprise baby 'Skyler', and the moment he was born she looked at him and knew straight away she wanted more.
With that ambition in mind, three years later at the age of 42, she gave birth to Kaius, her second child with husband Rodger Berman. One thing's for sure; the two youngsters will be the best dressed children at their school whilst they're growing up.
A quick look at Eva Longoria's Wikipedia article will tell you that she's done a number of things in her life. She's one of the world's most beautiful women, and she's been an actor, a producer, a director, an activist and also a businesswoman who's invested in a number of enterprises, including entire sports teams. It sounds like she tries to keep herself busy. As of June 2018, we imagine she's busier than she's ever been.
Longoria has been married three times, but it seems that it's the third marriage to TV president Jose Antonio Baston in 2016 that sparked her interest in becoming a mother. Their son Santiago arrived to complete their family on June 19th, with Longoria being 43 at the time of his birth. We wonder if her son will view himself in the same unique terms as Longoria does; she describes herself as 'Texican', a Mexican-American-Texan!
For Brooke Shields, motherhood very nearly didn't happen at all. By her own admission, she had a truly difficult time trying to conceive, having tried every IVF solution possible with seemingly no success. Both she and husband Chris Henchy had agreed that the stress and disappointment the process was causing to both of them was no longer worth it, and that they should give up after the course they were currently going through.
As if by magic, on that last attempt, Shields became pregnant, and at the age of 40 gave birth to her daughter, Grier. A happy and grateful Shields still serves to this day as a spokesperson for 'Fertility Lifelines', the organization that provided her with a lot of support and care as she battled to become a parent. The birth of her daughter was the catalyst for Shields's memorable feud with Tom Cruise, who disapproved of her use of medication to cope with postpartum depression.
Legendary singer Celine Dion sounds like she isn't someone who takes 'no' for an answer, even when it comes from nature. As one of the greatest pop divas of all time, it would be kind of disappointing if she did. Dion battled for years to conceive when she was in her early thirties, and after six years of trying and failing to do so naturally, she turned to a fertility specialist. That led to the birth of her first son, Rene Charles, in 2001, when Dion was 33. Nine years later, she decided she'd like to add to her brood.
She didn't 'Think Twice' before enlisting the help of specialists a second time. Dion defied the odds and became pregnant with twin boys, who were born healthy and happy in October 2010, naming one of them Eddy in tribute to her favorite songwriter Eddy Marnay, and the other Nelson in honor of former South African President Nelson Mandela.
It seems that the desire to have children wasn't among actor Kim Basinger's objectives when she was younger; she waited until she was 41 to have her only child, daughter Ireland, with her then-husband Alec Baldwin in 1995. If the couple were hoping that having children together would lead to a long and happy relationship, they were sadly mistaken; they filed for divorce a mere five years later.
It's not known if there were any special circumstances that led to Basinger waiting until later in life to have a child; she'd been married before meeting Baldwin and was rumored to have dated Prince and Richard Gere during the peak of her heydays in the late 1980s and 1990s. It may simply have been a matter of choice, and life not settling down enough to let her focus on it until then.
Celebrated actor Helen Hunt had her daughter, Makena Lei, at the age of 40 back in 2003. It wasn't noted at the time, but this was the culmination of years of trying to get pregnant for Hunt. Five years after her daughter was born, she gave an interview to a woman's magazine, in which she discussed her difficulties with conceiving in detail.
During the interview, Hunt amusingly quipped that she was never able to 'jump into the backseat of a car and get pregnant', and that it had been hard work for both herself and her boyfriend to make it happen. Had she not managed to become pregnant in 2003, she says she'd probably have adopted; she and her partner had discussed the idea and were happy with it. How many times on this list already have we seen a baby turn up at the last possible second?
Welcome to the 40 club, Eva Mendes! We have quite a few members already. Mendes was 40 years old exactly when she and Ryan Gosling welcomed their first child, daughter Esmerelda, in 2014. Two years later their second daughter Amada joined the family, and that sounds like it's going to be enough for her!
In an interview with a popular women's magazine, talking about motherhood, Mendes said that it was as intense and exhausting as any party lifestyle she'd experienced during her younger years. In fact, she said "I thought my wild nights are over, but these are some of the wildest nights I've ever had!". Anybody who's had children can sympathize to an extent with that; we envy anybody who still gets eight hours sleep a night. Having said that, we don't have Ryan Gosling to come home to every night, to that sympathy only goes so far!
Meryl Streep is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of the most iconic Hollywood figures of all time. She's also someone who, despite her immense fame and public profile, manages to do something that's truly rare with celebrities in the modern age; she keeps her private life private. For that reason, we may never know why there are so many years between the oldest and youngest of her four children. That's fair enough, it's none of our business; we're just curious!
Streep has had all of her children with husband Don Gummer, who she married in 1978 and had her first son with the following year. Three daughters followed, with the last arriving in 1991 when Streep was 42. All of their children have gone in to have careers in the arts themselves, with son John Wolfe a musician, daughters Mary and Grace Gummer actresses, and youngest daughter Louisa Gummer currently a popular model on social media.
You would never believe it by looking at Christie Brinkley, but the world-renowned model and actress is in her mid-60s. She could pass for someone twenty years younger easily, and some of her older children could be mistaken for her siblings. Her youngest, though, was born in 1998, and didn't come easily.
Brinkley was 44 by 1998 and had recently married architect Peter Cook. The two were keen to have a baby together, which would add to the two children Brinkley already had from previous relationships (one of whom is singer Alexa Ray Joel). Her body, though, wasn't so keen; they endured a number of heartbreaking miscarriages before deciding on in-vitro treatment, which saw their wishes fulfilled. The resulting daughter, Sailor Brinkley Cook, was signed as professional model in 2013, when she was only 15. We wonder where she gets it from?
Many of the women we've seen so far on this list have spoken of their pride at having children past the age of 40; either because it represented the successful end of a long battle to become pregnant, or because it simply felt like it was the right time in their life to become a mother. That doesn't seem to be the case for Naomi Watts.
The English actor had her first child, Sasha, when she was 39, and then immediately had another son named Kai, born the following year when she was 40. They were conceived naturally and with no issues, and Watts has spoken in the past of wishing that she'd actually had more children and made attempts to start a family earlier. She shouldn't be too hard on herself; she'd had her first child within two years of starting a relationship with actor Liev Schreiber which is hardly a case of dragging her heels!
Tori Spelling was pretty much the template for Paris Hilton, years before Hilton was even born. A socialite with an interest in acting and performing, there was a time when Spelling was never out of the headlines. Even her 2006 marriage to actor Dean McDermott sparked controversy; both of them were married when they were introduced but started an affair on the same night they met. It must have been true love, though; within a year they were married to each other, and have been together ever since, having no less than five children in twelve years.
The most recent of those children, Beau, was born in March 2017. By that time, Spelling was 43. Who's to say that she won't have another in the time to come? It would give her more to write about in her endless series of tell-all books!
'Breakfast Club' star Molly Ringwald wasn't a stranger to parenthood when her 40s rolled around; she'd had her first daughter Mathilda in 2003, when she was 35. In fact, it sounds like she was planning to add to her family sooner than she did. Ringwald recounts having surgery after Mathilda was born to correct a couple of issues including fibroids, which should have made subsequent pregnancies a little easier.
Unfortunately, that didn't prove to be the case. She and her husband Panio Gianopoulos struggled to successfully conceive again, taking six years to do so, by which time Ringwald was 41. It was worth waiting for when it happened though. She gave birth to Adele and Roman; twins! As well as acting, Ringwald has been a newspaper columnist, answering readers' questions on love, relationships and family. It sounds like she's well qualified to handle that role.
Instead of having 40 as a starting age for having a family in her head, actor Jennifer Connelly seems to have had it as a cutoff point! She'd already had a child with husband Paul Bettany before turning 40, and when she had her third, daughter Agnes Lark, at exactly forty years old, she knew straight away that she was done giving birth.
Speaking to Allure magazine shortly after the birth of her youngest child, she said 'I knew we were going to be done after number three. That's enough for us'. In our experience, that's enough for most people! Fourteen years separate Connelly's three children; she had her first with photographer David Dugan in 1997, years before meeting Bettany. They've had two children since marrying; the first being born in 2003 only two years after they met, working on the movie 'A Beautiful Mind'.
Uma Thurman, of 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Kill Bill' fame, had two children at around the average age most women do; 28 and 32. That was during her second marriage, to author Ethan Hawke. The marriage ended in 2005, and Thurman found love again with French businessman Arpad Busson. That relationship would result in Thurman's third child; her daughter Luna, but it would take a few years to get there.
By the time Luna was born, the year was 2012, and Thurman was 42. We wish that was a 'happily ever after', but four years later, Thurman and Busson ended up in court contesting custody of Luna, as well as ownership of various mutually owned assets including a diamond-encrusted engagement ring. Thurman won full custody of their daughter, so perhaps we can count that as a 'happily ever after' for her after all.
Julianne Moore is one of the world's most celebrated actors, but success didn't come quickly or easily to her. In fact, by the time she could truly be called a household name, she was already well into her mid-thirties. That might be one of the reasons why she left it a little later in life to start a family; taking time off to give birth at the precise moment your star has started to rise must be a daunting prospect.
Nevertheless, Moore did exactly that, taking a break in 1997 to have her son, Caleb, at the age of 36. Five years later, daughter Liv arrived, by which time Moore was 41. Despite her continued success on the big screen, Moore describes having a family as 'the greatest and most rewarding thing I've ever done' and tries hard to make sure her children grow up grounded and protected from the trappings of fame and wealth around them.
Actor and singer Laura Linney almost missed out on this list because she barely had her son, Bennett Armistead Schauer, inside her forties. She was in fact 49 when he was born, so she'd almost made it into her 50s!
There is a degree of confusion in the public domain in terms of how the baby came to be. No photos exist of Linney with a baby bump, and neither she nor husband Marc Schauer made any reference to expecting a baby until the birth was announced in January 2014. As a result of that, there have been suggestions that the baby may have been adopted as a newborn, or that a surrogate may have been used. Linney is of course under no obligation to tell us, but don't you just hate not knowing the answers to things?
Super-active singer, actor and activist says there's no special secret or method as to why her and her husband had a second child when she was 41; they were simply 'very attracted to each other', making the interesting observation that they were 'not machines or biological experiments', which seems to suggest that she's opposed to using artificial methods of conception.
As with some of the other women on the list, Milano sounds like she decided that her late thirties and early forties were simply the correct time for her to start having children; she'd had, in her own words, 'enough ladies lunches and shopping days', and was ready for something new in her life. In short, it sounds like she was just having too much fun to settle down and bring up a family until she did. There's nothing wrong with that!
The concept of 'miracle babies' is often raised by those who conceive after forty, and you can add Iman to the list of people who believe in them. She'd had a child much earlier in life, when she was still in her twenties, during her first marriage to basketball star Spencer Haywood. Later, and more famously, she married the late, legendary British rock star David Bowie.
The couple did try to have a child of their own the natural way, but nothing seemed to be working, including IVF treatment. Like many others, they were considering adoption when, at the age of 45, Iman spontaneously became pregnant and gave birth to their daughter Alexandria. That was back in the year 2000, meaning that Alexandria is now an adult in her own right. By that point, Bowie was 53, making his own fertility even less likely than Iman's; but then nothing about Bowie was ever normal.
Madonna's long history of parenthood, both natural and via adoption, is very well known. She's one of the most famous women in the world, and everything she does makes headlines, even as she enters her 60s. The Queen of Pop has six children; four of whom she has adopted, and two she gave birth to.
The first was the product of her relationship with fitness trainer Carlos Leon; her daughter Lourdes was born in 1996, when Madonna was 38. A few years later, with that relationship over, she married British film director Guy Ritchie, with whom she had her son Rocco in 2000. By that point, 'Madge' was 42. She's known to have been fiercely protective of all her children, not wanting them to grow up in the intensely focused media glare that she's been subjected to for her entire adult life.
Popular actor and comedian Tina Fey's decision to have a child at 41 was a very clear and conscious decision, which her and husband Jeff Richmond arrived at together after careful consideration. They worked together on the show '30 Rock', on which Richmond served as a composer, and were conscious that they might find themselves regretting not doing so years later if they just focused on the show and waited for it to come to a natural end. And so, they didn't!
Fey and Richmond had already had one child but welcomed a second; her daughter Penelope; who was conceived when she was 41. They had previously said that they were worried that they might find, later in life, that 'part of their family was missing' if they didn't act when they did, so we're happy for them.
We're officially expanding the definition here. 'After 40' doesn't necessarily have to mean between the ages of 40 and 50. Why should it, when famous people have proven that they're perfectly capable of giving birth to healthy babies when they're 50 years old? Step forward, legendary musician Janet Jackson; she's the one who's shown us all how it can be done.
For the longest time, it looked like Jackson was never going to have children. She's been married three times, and it took the third of them for her to finally make her a mother. Her daughter Eissa was born in January 2017, to her and her then-husband Wissam Al Mana. She'd been dating the Qatari businessman since 2010, and married him in 2012, but they separated mere months after Jackson gave birth. It's a shame, but we guess that's just the way love goes.
It seems to be the acting profession in particular that contains many of the women who have children after forty. There could be reasons for that; not many female characters on film or television are written as pregnant, and therefore becoming pregnant rules you out of a lot of parts. Add to that the fact that you don't make money when you're not working, and it's easy to see why a lot of people wait.
Mary Stuart Masterson can be added to that list of names from the acting world; she already had one child with her first husband before she was forty, but when she married fellow actor Jeremy Davidson in 2006, she went on to have no less than three children with him, with the first arriving when she was 43. A year later, at 44, she became pregnant again; this time with twins! Now in her early 50s, she has three children under 10 years old.
'First Wives Club' actor Marcia Gay Harden joined the 'first child club' when she was in her late thirties, giving birth to daughter Eulala Grace in 1998 at the age of 39. If you think her daughter has an exotic sounding name, you should have met her husband Thaddaeus Scheel.
Eulala was joined six years later in 2004 by twin siblings, by which point Harden was 45. She had a boy, Hudson, and another girl, Julitta Dee. Having three children at that age can be a real handful, but Harden stays calm by practicing the ancient Japanese art of flower arranging; a trick she learned from her mother. She's also skilled with a pottery wheel and has released a book on her relationship with her mother and their battle against Alzheimer's disease. In short, it seems that there's nothing she can't quite literally turn her hands to.
Anybody who grew up watching the 'National Lampoon' series of films will be familiar with Beverly D'Angelo, who memorably played Ellen Griswold. She's also known to many as the former wife of the legendary Al Pacino, who she was with from 1997 through to 2003. It was that marriage that brought her to parenthood in her very late forties.
The couple had twins; a boy and a girl; in 2001, which was the same year that D'Angelo turned 50. If you're noticing a pattern with twins, it's not a coincidence. IVF treatment, when successful, significantly boosts the chances of twins or even triplets being born. D'Angelo and Pacino spoke openly about their use of IVF, which D'Angelo concedes made her nervous and led to a somewhat uncomfortable pregnancy; not that she would swap the end result for the world.
The actors just keep on coming! Next up, we have Jane Krakowski, who gave birth to her only child; son Bennett Robert Godley; in 2011 at the age of 42. He was named after his father, Robert Godley, a British fashion designer whom Krakowski was engaged to at the time. The couple started dating in 2019 but separated in 2013.
Away from motherhood, Krakowski is arguably best known for her work on the eternally popular '30 Rock', although 'Ally McBeal' fans will be more than familiar with her as well. Interestingly, she was also in 'National Lampoon' at the same time as Beverly D'Angelo. Who knows whether they swapped tips on parenthood at some point during breaks between scenes? Whilst she's more famous for her appearances on the big screen, theater is her first love, where she's been nominated for Tony Awards several times and appeared in classic shows like 'Guys and Dolls'.
Seasoned actor Annette Bening, the wife of legendary performer and director Warren Beatty, has four children with him; the last of which was born in the year 2000, by which time Bening was 42.
Beatty was actually Bening's second husband; she married him way back in 1992 and has been with him ever since; but prior to that she was married to a choreographer named J. Stephen White from 1984 to 1991. When she's not pursuing her award-winning career on screen and stage, which has seen her receive several Tony Awards, four Oscar nominations and her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she's actually an ordained minister for the Universal Life Church Monastery. That's a non-denominational church open to people from all walks of life; minsters of which are permitted to perform marriage ceremonies. So, if you want to have Bening presiding over the occasion when you tie the knot, just give her a call!
Will every single name you see on this list from now until the end of it come from the acting world? Place your bets now! Kelly Preston is yet another example. Preston has over sixty acting credits to her name and has also dated some of the most famous actors in the world, too. She's a former girlfriend of George Clooney and was engaged to Charlie Sheen in 1990; a relationship that allegedly ended when Sheen shot her in the arm (although she denies this). It's her marriage to John Travolta that brought her children, though. They've been together since 1991.
Travolta and Preston have had three children together; the youngest of which, son Benjamin, was born in 2010. Preston was 48 when she became pregnant with him. The news was a complete emotional shock to the couple, leaving them in happy tears the morning they found out.
It's a singer instead of an actor! Or is it? Legendary pop diva Mariah Carey does have acting credits to her name, so we'll leave it for you to decide whether she bucks the trend or not. During her first marriage to music executive Thomas Mottola there was no sign of children on the horizon, so parenthood appeared to be just a sweet, sweet fantasy for Carey until her second marriage to Nick Cannon in 2008.
That union was followed by the birth of twins, Moroccan and Monroe, in 2011. Reports actually differ on which year Carey was born in, so depending on who you believe, she was either 42 or 43 when she became a mother. She was undergoing fertility treatment at the time, but her personal feeling is that a holistic acupuncture therapy course she was going through was actually what made the difference with their efforts to conceive.
OK, Nancy Grace definitely isn't an actor; so, if you did take that bet with anyone, you just lost. Sorry! The outspoken former prosecutor is well known for her strong views whenever she appears on television; often to give her own personal slant on ongoing legal matters within the United States. She's frequently had her own long running cable TV shows from which to express her opinion, too. She's an unconventional woman, and that extends to the age at which she's had children.
Grace and her husband, investment banker David Lynch (not to be confused with the movie director!), welcomes twins into their life in 2007, by which time she was 48. At the time, she said she'd always wanted to be a mother, but it just seemed that it was never on the cards for her until it actually happened. She considers it to be a late life blessing that came by way of divine intervention.
We're not so much of the opinion that actor Marcia Cross was so much of a 'desperate housewife' as a determined one. Marriage didn't arrive until comparatively late in life for Cross; she wed stockbroker Tom Mahoney in 2006, and no sooner had it happened then she started fertility treatment, so they could have children together. In fact, it's generally believed that they started fertility treatment so fast that they didn't even go on honeymoon!
Whether that's true or not, it worked. Shortly before her 45th birthday in 2007, Cross gave birth to twin daughters, Eden and Savannah. She went from being single to being married with children in a little longer than a year. That's quite the dramatic change in circumstances. We'll take that as evidence that it's never too late in life to have a whirlwind romance!
Highly respected actor, Oscar winner, and late-life mother. Mira Sorvino has done it all. She and her husband, fellow actor and director Christopher Backus, were no strangers to parenthood when Sorvino turned 40; they'd already had two children. They weren't done yet though, went on to add son Holden Paul Terry in June 2009 at the age of 41, and also daughter Lucia in 2012, by which time she was 44. They joined Jonathan Christopher King and Mattea Angel to complete the family.
Away from her acting and her family life, Sorvino is one of the many women who have united to call out Harvey Weinstein for his allegedly unwelcome advances during a time when she was trying to establish herself in the industry, making her one of the icons of the #MeToo movement. She's also been affiliated with Amnesty International since 2004, taking a particular interest in trying to combat human trafficking.
Cheryl Tiegs is frequently described as 'the first supermodel', although Twiggy, Janice Dickinson and a few others would like to dispute that claim. She most definitely popularized 'Sportswear Illustrated' though and made the pink bikini a cultural icon. She definitely broke the mold, and she did it again when it came to having children.
She was already 44 when she had her first child, Zack, with then-husband Anthony Peck (son of Hollywood legend Gregory), but when she was married again to yoga guru Rod Stryker in 1998, they decided they'd also like to have children, even though by this point Tiegs was comfortably over 50. Undeterred, the couple made use of a surrogate, and that led to the birth of twin boys Jaden and Theo in the year 2000. By that point, Tiegs was 52. Even at 71 she still looks much younger than she is, and you could be forgiven for thinking she could still conceive naturally.
Motherhood had already arrived once in life for Rachel Weisz, and she probably wasn't expecting it to happen again. She'd been in a relationship with film director Darren Aronofsky from 2001 to 2010, and had a son with him, named Henry, in 2006 when she was 36 years old.
When she and Aronofsky separated, and she started a relationship with 'James Bond' star Daniel Craig, having a second child probably wasn't at the forefront of her mind. But then anybody who plays James Bond is likely to be quite the fertile alpha male, and in early 2018 the couple confirmed that, at the age of 48, Weisz was pregnant. Their baby girl was born in September 2018, and they've done such a good job of keeping the press away that nobody even knows her name. We wonder how Craig reacted when he found out he was going to become a father again at 50? We're guessing shaken, but not stirred.
If you're someone who believes that women shouldn't be having children when they're well into their fifties, we recommend that you don't express that opinion to towering actor and former action-movie star Brigitte Nielsen. Even in her mid-fifties, she still looks physically imposing, whether or not she's recently given birth!
Nielsen and her fifth husband, Italian Mattia Dessi, became parents in 2018 with the birth of their daughter Frida in June. The child was Nielson's fifth, but her first since 1995. That's a very long way to go in between children; her youngest child is now 34 years old and probably wasn't expecting to have another baby brother! Nielson was 54 when Frida was born. She'd recently said she'd had plastic surgery to look 'as young as her husband', who's 39. Apparently, her reproductive system has become younger again, too.
Celebrity chef Donatella Arpaia announced she was cooking up something special with her husband Allan Stewart in May of 2018; twins! She'd already given birth in her forties - or, to be precise, on her 40th birthday, September 15th, 2011, which was when her son Alessandro arrived into this world.
The couple always wanted more children and struggled for years trying various methods of fertility treatment until something just clicked at the start of the year, and everything fell into place. Arpaia welcomed her 'miracle babies' in November 2018; a son named Noah and a daughter named Emma Mariella. Alessandro is actually credited with making the whole thing happen; he had a dream that he had twin siblings, and telling his parents about the dream is what inspired them to give IVF another try. Alessandro's dream went as far as naming the children; names which at first didn't appeal to Arpaia, but the moment they were born she confesses not being able to imagine calling them anything else.
Until recently she was one of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, and she's been one of the world's most beautiful women for decades, but one thing Kenya Moore had never been until 2018 was a mother. At 47, it looked like it was never going to happen for her, but her marriage to Marc Daly in 2017 changed her outlook on life, and she thought she'd take the chance to start IVF treatment whilst it was still an option for her. Happily for her, she didn't have to wait too long for it to produce results.
She confirmed that she was pregnant during an appearance on a 'Real Housewives' reunion show towards the start of the year, and in November 2018 she gave birth to her son, Brooklyn Doris Daly. The name has meaning; Brooklyn is where she met her husband, and 'Doris' was the name of her grandmother, and the woman who actually raised her.
To say that Audra McDonald is a star of the stage doesn't really do her justice. The actor and singer has won six Tony Awards for performance; that's more than anybody else, of any gender, in history. She's also the only person ever to win in all four of the acting categories that the Tony Awards offer. Basically, she's a legend, and one of the greatest of all time. She has a number of television credits to her name, but the theater is where she's always shone the brightest.
McDonald had already had a child whilst in her thirties with first husband Peter Donovan, and then she was married again to actor and singer William Swenson in 2012. To the surprise of both of them, she became pregnant in 2016 at the age of 46 and welcomed a daughter in October of that year. There was no IVF treatment involved; McDonald actually thinks that her interest in tap dancing kept her young enough to conceive again!
From Ginger Spice to Mama Spice. Geri Halliwell; pop legend and UN ambassador; gave birth for the first time in the 00s to her daughter Bluebell but has since remarried to Formula 1 Racing director Christian Horner. In January 2017, the couple had their first child together, a son named George, when Halliwell was 44. She announced the news on Instagram, posting a picture of her scan along with the caption 'God Bless Mother Nature'.
We don't know if the baby was planned or not, but we'd like to believe that the couple sat down at home, and the conversation started with Halliwell saying to her husband "I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want", to which he replied "so tell me what you want, what you really really want", and the discussion went round and round until she eventually said "a baby".
Sometimes, even the most advanced and determined fertility treatments don't work. That doesn't mean that you have to give up on parenthood completely, though. When nature just wasn't going to give Angela Bassett and her husband Courtney B. Vance the children they'd always desired, she turned to surrogacy to solve the problem. That gave her twins. Son Slater and daughter Bronwyn were born in January 2006, when the acclaimed actor was 48 years old.
For Bassett, that meant the immediate end to the kind of celebrity party lifestyle she'd enjoyed for decades up to that point. In her own words, she said "I still get so many offers to go to this party or that party, but it's just more fun for me to sit at home and gaze at my two little stars". She's always been interested in children; she's an ambassador for various youth theater causes.
Actor and model Garcelle Beauvais, best known for her work on 'the Jamie Foxx' show and 'NYPD Blue', really had to fight to become a mother for the second time. She had no problem conceiving in 1991, when she was 25, during her first marriage to producer Daniel Saunders. Trying again during her second marriage to talent agent Mike Nilon was a much more arduous process.
The couple battled miscarriages and fertility problems for a long time but were eventually rewarded in 2007 when she had twins Jax and Jaid at the age of 40. She said that once she'd actually had the twins, motherhood was easier in her 40s than it was in her 20s because she was less worried about the potential impact it might have on her career. Regrettably, it later transpired that Nilon had been having an affair before, during and after the birth of the children, and they filed for divorce in 2010.
Bond girl and movie legend Jane Seymour has four children. She's also had four marriages, although she isn't operating on a basis of one child per marriage! She had her first two in the 1980s with third husband David Flynn, and then her second two with her fourth husband, actor and director James Keach, in November 1995. The two later boys were twins, John and Kristopher, named in honor of her friends Johnny Cash and Christopher Reeve. That's some strong showbiz heritage!
Seymour was 44 when the twins arrived, but she has always looked and acted younger than her years (and still does). In February 2018, she posed for Playboy Magazine at the age of 67, becoming the oldest woman ever to be photographed for the magazine, and looked incredible in the process of doing so.
Rashida Jones; actor, producer, filmmaker, and as of August 2018, mother. The last two years in particular seem to have been very busy ones for older celebrity mothers to have babies, and 'Parks and Recreation' star Jones has joined the club. She's had a son with her musician partner Ezra Koenig.
The new baby might have quite an interesting upbringing when it comes to cultural identity. At various points, Jones has identified as both a practicing Hindu and a practicing Jew, and also says she's gone through periods where she's either felt completely black, or completely Jewish, rather than feeling both at the same time; although she says she's now at a point in her life where she feels more evenly balanced. Jones spends a great deal of her time on philanthropic causes; including visiting Syrian refugee camps and raising awareness of both AIDS and homelessness in New York City.
Salma Hayek, star of the acting world, suspected that she might be facing an uphill battle to conceive when she decided, at 41, that she wanted a baby. She'd more or less accepted that she'd been to undergo some form of fertility treatment; and then it turned out she didn't at all. She conceived her daughter, Valentina, naturally, and became a mother in 2009.
That's not to say that she had an easy time with the pregnancy. As can sometimes happen, Hayek contracted gestational diabetes whilst she was with-child, which can cause complications and requires medical treatment. Despite that, she has no regrets; she once told the website WebMD that she was a better person at 41 than she was at 31, and had she become pregnant at the younger age she doesn't believe she'd have been a good mother.
It was always a case of 'no doubt' that Gwen Stefani would have children one day; many of the lyrics of her band's hit album 'Tragic Kingdom' deal with her disappointment that she neither married nor had children with bandmate Tony Kanal. When that disappointment eased, she moved onto Gavin Rossdale of the band 'Bush'. Even then, she was well into her thirties when they had children.
She gave birth to the couple's first son, Kingston, in 2006 when she was 37. Second son Zuma followed two years later, at the age of 39, and then Apollo, a third son she describes as a 'miracle', arrived in 2014, at the age of 44. The later addition to the family was neither planned nor expected, and Stefani says being pregnant in her mid-forties fundamentally changed the way she thought about life. We hope she meant for the better!
In the years before she became more famous as a talent show host and TV presenter, Amanda Holden was Britain's 'girl next door', seen as the shy and demure wife of game show host Les Dennis, whose profile was once much higher than hers. An affair with fellow actor Neil Morrissey put her in the headlines, changed her image forever, and; as these things seemingly always do; got her more work than she'd ever had previously. These days she can be found next to Simon Cowell, judging 'Britain's Got Talent'.
Holden and her husband Chris Hughes had their second child, a daughter named Hollie, in 2012 when Holden was 40. The baby certainly didn't arrive easily; Holden needed a blood transfusion after the birth and was critically ill for three days. Happily, she lived to tell the tale, and has no regrets.
British soap legend Tamzin Outhwaite is probably best known for her role on hugely-popular TV drama 'Eastenders', which is based in London. That connection is a little unfair to the talented actor though, who'd enjoyed a long and successful career, appearing in 'Doctor Who', 'Hotel Babylon', 'Law & Order: UK' and the movie version of 'Great Expectations', as well as many other roles.
When she married actor Tom Ellis in 2008, she knew she wanted to start a family, and they went on to have two children; first daughter Florence was born later the same year she married, and second daughter Marnie was born in 2012, by which point Outhwaite was 41. She said at the time that she knew having children might end her career - as it meant giving up her 'Eastenders' role for an extended period, but at that point she simply didn't care; it was a sacrifice she was prepared to make.
