Allison Janney doesn’t regret never having kids.
The actress, 66, spoke about never being married or having children on the “Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky” podcast episode that dropped Tuesday. Janney admitted she’s thought about marriage, and revealed she went to a fertility specialist in her 40s.
“I always thought I would get married, just because at the time I was growing up, that’s what you did,” she noted.
YouTube/Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky
But when she moved to New York to pursue her acting career, she said she had long-term boyfriends who, like her, didn’t want to have kids. However, when she was in a four-year relationship in her mid-30s, she said she thought it was the time to have children.
“And then it was apparent to me that this was not the man I wanted to have kids with,” she shared. “So I was like, ‘OK, well, I guess that didn’t happen.’”
But Janney said she was relieved.
“The way you feel in a relationship that you know is probably not the one and you’re kind of in it and you don’t know how to get out of it — that’s the most lonely feeling in the world to be with someone and feel alone,” she reflected. “Oh my God, that’s awful. So, it didn’t happen for me.’”
“I knew I never wanted to have kids,” she continued. “That’s just something that I’ve always known.”
Still, she said that in her 40s she felt that she should “just try” and visited a fertility doctor, and was bluntly told that her chances of getting pregnant weren’t great.
“The first I heard that I wouldn’t be able to have a kid at 40-something was in this fertility doctor’s office. She was like, “The odds are not in your favor,’” she recalled, admitting that she thought women could easily have kids in their 50s.
“And she said, ‘Also, where is your partner?’ And the guy that I was with, he didn’t even come with me and I was like, ‘I guess that is a sign, isn’t it?’”
Janney said that her “true love” in her life besides her friends and family are her dogs.
“Animals, especially dogs, are my heart,” she said. “I could not love dogs more.”