There’s no perfect time to start — or grow — a family and become a parent, but for some celebrity moms, the sweet spot came at or after the age of 40. And the same goes for many childbearing individuals, famous or not. In fact, recent US Census data show that fertility rates have declined for younger women and increased for older women (67 percent, to be exact, for those age 35 to 39 between 1990 and 2019). Despite past beliefs and stigmas, people are having children later in life. If you’re wondering which famous faces have given birth later into adulthood, keep scrolling to see which celebrities have welcomed sweet babies while in their 40s (And in the case of one mom, while 50!)
— Additional reporting by Melanie Whyte
1
Naomi Campbell
Image Source: Jeff Spicer / Getty
The 53-year-old supermodel recently announced the birth of her second child in a sweet Instagram post. “It’s never too late to become a mother,” she wrote alongside the photo, holding her newborn’s hand with her first child whose birth was also announced quietly on social media. Campbell announced that she’d welcomed a baby girl on Instagram in 2021. “A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother,” she captioned a photo of her holding her daughter’s feet. “So honoured to have this gentle soul in my life there are no words to describe the lifelong bond that I now share with you my angel. There is no greater love.”
On “Good Morning America,” the actor revealed that becoming a mother was a dream come true for her. “This is something that I’ve been wanting for a long time, and my next thing is I’m going to be a mom — and not just of one, but of two,” she said.
2 / 52
3
Lucy Liu
Image Source: Karwai Tang / Getty
The 54-year-old actor had her son, Rockwell, now 7 years old, via surrogate in her late 40s. She left LA for NY to raise her kid on her own. In coming to the decision to have a child, Liu says she didn’t take much time to think about it. “I just pulled the trigger,” she said. “I can think myself out of something easily; if I think too much, I won’t do it. It’s better for me to feel something and just go for it.”
3 / 52
4
Da Brat
Image Source: Theo Wargo/Getty Images
She hasn’t given birth yet, but Da Brat recently announced her pregnancy at 48 years old. The “Funkdafied” singer told People in an interview published Feb. 21 that she and her wife, Jesseca “Judy” Harris-Dupart, are expecting their first child together. “It’s been quite a journey,” Da Brat said, “there’s a lot of stuff we learned about women over the age of 40.”
4 / 52
5
Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani was 44 years old when she welcomed her youngest son, Apollo Bowie Flynn, to her growing brood of boys with ex-husband Gavin Rossdale. She was already mom to Kingston and Zuma, who were both born when she was in her 30s.
5 / 52
6
Rachel Weisz
Image Source: Mike Marsland / Getty
The actress welcomed her first baby at 48. In December 2018, soon after giving birth to her daughter, Weisz told the Daily Mirror that she didn’t plan on having any more children. She also divulged a bit of her parenting style that her youngest daughter will experience as she grows up: “I’m a bit of a pushover as a mother. I’m not super strict. I love it, so I’m a very happy mother.”
6 / 52
7
Paris Hilton
Image Source: Raymond Hall / Getty
Paris Hilton, who turned 42 in February, announced the birth of her son in January 2023. On Feb. 22, the 42-year-old DJ and heiress shared an Instagram post with her son’s name — Phoenix Barron Hilton Reum — and wrote that the name “means so much to me” in the caption.
7 / 52
8
Rachel Zoe
Rachel Zoe was 42 when she announced on her site, The Zoe Report, in 2013 that she was expecting her second child, Kaius Jagger, with husband Rodger Berman.
“Before we head into the chaos of fashion season, we wanted to take a moment to officially confirm that we are expecting another child. We are beyond excited for Skyler to have a sibling and for us to fall in love all over again. We feel incredibly blessed,” she wrote.
Rachel’s oldest son, Skyler Morrison, was born in 2011.
8 / 52
9
Olivia Munn
Image Source: Emma McIntyre / Getty
Olivia Munn had her first baby when she was 41 with comedian John Mulaney in Dec. 2021. The actor opened up about postpartum depression shortly after in a vulnerable Instagram post for her first Mother’s Day. “Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, but especially to the moms who are struggling with post partum depression/anxiety, still wearing their maternity clothes because you’ve realized that the snap back is bulls–t and so unreal, and feel insecure as they scroll through Insta today realizing they don’t have the energy, creativity or brain power to post a beautiful pic of motherhood,” Munn said.
9 / 52
10
Tamron Hall
Tamron Hall gave birth to her first child with husband Steven Greener, a son named Moses, in April 2019 — just a month after announcing her news. She was 48 years old at the time of Moses’s birth.
The mom has since opened up about why she kept her pregnancy a secret: “I was high-risk, not just because of my age, but there were other medical factors too. My doctor said, ‘This is your body, your health. You share of your journey what you want to share.’ I was terrified I would lose this baby and I would have to go back and tell everyone that now it was bad news, and after this pregnancy had gone so far.”
10 / 52
11
Laura Linney
Image Source: Frazer Harrison / Getty
Laura Linney was 49 years old when she gave birth to her son. “I’m certainly not an advocate for having children later, but for me, it’s been wonderful and I’m deeply grateful,” Linney said in an interview with The Guardian. “People would say to me, ‘Your life’s going to change.’ Good! I want my life to change.”
At the age of 50, Janet Jackson welcomed her first and only child, a son named Eissa.
16 / 52
17
Halle Berry
Halle Berry was 41 when she had her first child with then-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, daughter Nahla Ariela Aubry, in March 2008. Halle told Harper’s Bazaar: “My pregnancy was amazing. I was happy that whole time, I felt good, I had energy, I was like Superwoman. I wish I could feel like that for the rest of my life, that’s how fantastic it was.”
Berry was 47 when she gave birth to her second child, Maceo Robert, in 2013 with ex-husband Olivier Martinez.
17 / 52
18
Tina Fey
For comedian and actor Tina Fey, the decision to have another baby after welcoming daughter Alice Zenobia in 2005 wasn’t an easy one. In her memoir “Bossypants,” Fey explained her trepidation, writing, “Science shows that fertility and movie offers drop off steeply for women after 40.”
Fey gave birth to baby number two, daughter Penelope Athena, in 2011, at the age of 41.
18 / 52
19
Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger and then-husband Alec Baldwin welcomed their daughter Ireland on Oct. 23, 1995, when Kim was 41. She shared a birthday post for Ireland in 2022, writing: “My greatest achievement… Happy birthday Tiny Dancer. I love you up to the stars and down to the bugs in the grass, forever.”
19 / 52
20
Nicole Kidman
Already a mother to Isabella and Connor, her children with ex Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman gave birth to her first biological child, Sunday Rose, at the age of 40 in 2008. Faith Margaret, Kidman’s second daughter with husband Keith Urban, arrived via gestational surrogate in 2012.
20 / 52
21
Mariah Carey
One of the most anticipated celebrity births of 2011 was that of then-42-year-old Mariah Carey, who gave birth to twins Moroccan and Monroe, whom she shares with ex-husband Nick Cannon, in April of that year.
21 / 52
22
Uma Thurman
After having two kids with ex-husband Ethan Hawke, Maya and Levon, Uma Thurman welcomed her third, Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson — called Luna — in July 2012 at 42 years old.
22 / 52
23
Julianne Moore
In April 2002, Julianne Moore welcomed her second child, Liv, at the age of 41. Her first child, Caleb, is five years older.
23 / 52
24
Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts began building her family with ex-husband Liev Schreiber in 2007 with the birth of son Sasha at the age of 39. She added to it a year later when her son Kai was born in December 2008 — she was 40 years old.
24 / 52
25
Kelly Preston
After the heartbreaking loss of their son Jett at 16 in 2009, Kelly Preston and John Travolta announced they were expecting in 2010. Shortly after, at the age of 48, Kelly delivered a healthy baby boy named Benjamin on Nov. 23 of that year. John and Kelly are also parents to daughter Ella Bleu, who was born in 2000.
25 / 52
26
Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden was 44 when she had twins Hudson and Julitta Dee on April 22, 2004, with husband Thaddaeus Scheel. Their daughter Eulala Grace was born on Sept. 23, 1998, when Harden was 39.
26 / 52
27
Salma Hayek
Salma Hayek was 40 years old when she gave birth in 2007 to her daughter, Valentina Paloma Pinault, whom she shares with husband Francois-Henri Pinault.
27 / 52
28
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon gave birth to her first child, daughter Eva Amurri, in 1985 at the age of 39. She then went on to welcome sons Jack Henry and Miles Guthrie at age 42 and 45, respectively.
After multiple rounds of IVF and one devastating miscarriage, Celine Dion was 42 when she gave birth to twin boys, Eddy and Nelson, in 2010. Celine and her late husband, René Angélil, welcomed their first son, René-Charles, in 2001.
In an interview with Us Weekly, the singer candidly discussed her understandable fears about having a healthy pregnancy the second time around: “My doctors had to constantly reassure me . . . Each week I had sonograms. I heard their heart beats . . . It’s stressful but I’m relaxing. I look at my little belly. I do almost nothing. If you tell me I have to stay in bed, I will stay in bed until November, when the babies are born. To bring them into the world, there’s nothing more important than that. It’s incredible.”
30 / 52
31
Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald was 41 when she gave birth to twins, son Roman Stylianos and daughter Adele Georgiana (pictured above), in 2009. Ringwald was already a mom to daughter Mathilda Ereni, who was born in 2003.
31 / 52
32
Helen Hunt
Helen Hunt was 40 years old when her daughter, Makena Lei Gordon Carnahan, was born in 2004. Hunt discussed her challenges getting pregnant in a 2008 article for Ladies’ Home Journal:
It turned out to be tougher to get pregnant than I thought it would be. I tried for a long time, and it just didn’t happen, to the point where getting pregnant became the greatest wish — and the greatest challenge — of my life. My fate wasn’t to jump into the backseat of a car and have a baby. My boyfriend and I were on our last big try, and if the baby hadn’t come, we would have adopted. But then I did get pregnant — in 2003.
Hunt is also mom to son Emmett, who was born in 1998.
32 / 52
33
Geena Davis
In 2002, at age 46, Geena Davis gave birth to daughter Alizeh Keshvar. Then, just two years later in 2004, the then-48-year-old welcomed twin sons, Kian William and Kaiis Steven.
33 / 52
34
Meryl Streep
Already mom to two daughters and a son, Meryl Streep gave birth to her fourth child, Louisa Jacobson Gummer, on June 12, 1991, just before her 42nd birthday.
34 / 52
35
Marcia Cross
Image Source: Getty Images / John Shearer
Marcia Cross, who married Tom Mahoney in 2006, gave birth shortly after to twin girls, Eden and Savannah, in February 2007 — just before she turned 45. Cross was very realistic about her chances of conceiving. Instead of a honeymoon, the couple began in vitro immediately after the wedding.
35 / 52
36
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly was 40 years old when she and husband Paul Bettany added a daughter to their all-boy brood. Agnes Lark joined big brothers Kai and Stellan (pictured above) in May 2011.
36 / 52
37
Mary Stuart Masterson
Mary Stuart Masterson had her first baby, a boy named Phineas, at age 43 with her husband, actor Jeremy Davidson. The couple then welcomed twins, Clio and Wilder, in August 2011 when the actress was 44, and she gave birth to a fourth child, a son, in October 2012, when she was 45.
37 / 52
38
Cameron Diaz
Image Source: JB Lacroix / Getty
Cameron Diaz welcomed her first child in 2020. She was 47 at the time and announced the exciting news on Instagram. We are so happy, blessed and grateful to begin this new decade by announcing the birth of our daughter,” she and husband Benji Madden wrote in a joint statement. “She is really really cute!! Some would even say RAD.”
38 / 52
39
Madonna
Image Source: BEN STANSALL / Getty
The pop icon welcomed her first child at 38 and second at age 42. Madonna, now 64, has since adopted four more kids.
39 / 52
40
Christina Ricci
Image Source: NBC / Getty
Christina Ricci welcomed her second kid in December 2021 at age 41. “Baby Cleo is here,” Ricci wrote on Instagram on December 8, 2022, alongside a video of the newborn. “We are so in love with her.”
Kotb told Dr. Oz in 2018: “I remember I said to Joel, ‘I want to ask you a question. I’m going to bring something up to you and don’t answer me right now.’ I said, ‘Just let it marinate for a day or a week or as long as you need.’ He said, ‘OK.’ I said, ‘I can’t hold it in, so I’m going to say it.’ So I said, ‘I’d like to explore adoption with you.’ And he said, ‘I don’t need a day.'”
41 / 52
42
Kristen Wiig
Image Source: Amy Sussman / Getty
Kristen Wiig had twins via surrogate in 2020 at age 46. In an interview for the September 2020 issue of InStyle, she said, “So many things were bittersweet. I was over the moon feeling them kick for the first time, but then I would get in my head and ask myself all these questions, like, ‘Why couldn’t I do this?’ At the same time I would tell myself it didn’t matter. She was giving us the greatest gift, and I just wanted them to get here!” She added, “Overall it was a very beautiful thing, and now that I’m on the other side, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
42 / 52
43
Sandra Bullock
Image Source: Karwai Tang / Getty
Sandra Bullock adopted her son, Louis, when she was 45, and adopted her daughter, Laila, a few years later. “I finally realize, ‘Oh, this is what I was supposed to do when I grew up,” she said. “Not be an actress; to be a mom. . . . This is my purpose,” she told Today in 2018.
43 / 52
44
Diane Keaton
Image Source: Amy Sussman / Getty
Diane Keaton adopted two kids after she turned 50. Now, at 77 years old, she enjoys a close relationship with her 27-year-old daughter, Dexter, and 22-year-old son, Duke.
44 / 52
45
Maria Menounos
Image Source: Jon Kopaloff / Getty
The TV host, 44, confirmed in Feb. 2023 that she’s expecting her first child via surrogate. “Just after a decade of trying everything, we are so grateful to the beautiful family helping us conceive our baby,” Menounos told People. “[My husband] Keven, my dad and I are all beyond excited for this soul to come into our lives. What a blessing.”
45 / 52
46
Kristin Davis
Image Source: Randy Brooke / Getty
Kristin Davis adopted a daughter when she was 46 and a son when she was 53. “I felt like there was a child out there who I needed to find that was my child. I can’t explain it. It was a spiritual kind of a thing . . . [Adoption] is a long road. It’s not an easy road,” she told Jada Pinkett Smith on an episode of “Red Table Talk.”
At 45, Sheryl Crow adopted her oldest son, Wyatt. Three years later, she added another son to her family with the adoption of Levi.
48 / 52
49
Michelle Williams
Image Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty
Michelle Williams, 42, gave birth to her third child in October 2022. Williams quietly confirmed her pregnancy to Variety. “As the years go on, you sort of wonder what they might hold for you or not hold for you. It’s exciting to discover that something you want again and again is available one more time,” she said. “That good fortune is not lost on me or my family.”
49 / 52
50
Eva Longoria
Image Source: Jeff Kravitz / Getty
Eva Longoria was 42 when she got pregnant with her son, Santiago. She’s also stepmother to her husband José’ Bastón’s three older kids, Natalia, Mariana, and José.
50 / 52
51
Rebel Wilson
Image Source: Karwai Tang / Getty
The 42-year-old actor announced the birth of her first child in an Instagram post. “Beyond proud to announce the birth of my first child, Royce Lillian, born this past week via surrogate,” she wrote. “I can’t even describe the love I have for her, she’s a beautiful miracle!”
51 / 52
52
Angela Bassett
Image Source: Cindy Ord / Getty
Angela Bassett welcomed twins via surrogate when she was 48. She told People that it took seven years of fertility treatment before she turned to a surrogate. “I was devastated when it didn’t happen [again and again]. I had to remain hopeful and resilient.”
