Allison Janney: ‘I knew I never wanted to have kids… I’ve always known’

Allison Janney is GOATed. I’ve loved her since The West Wing and back then, I thought that was the peak of her career. She was just getting started! As of this moment, Janney has a collection of seven Emmy Awards (out of 16 nominations!!), an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and about a million SAG awards, Critics Choice Awards and smaller critics awards. She’s absolutely incredible. She’s also famously unmarried and famously childfree. I remember reading a profile of her in her early 40s, and they made it sound like she just lived a carefree life with a string of younger, handsome boyfriends, and she spent her time throwing fantastic parties at the home she owned all by herself. Well, Janney, now 66 years old, is talking about whether she regrets any part of her fabulous life. She does not. LMAO.

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. 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.”

The “I, Tonya” star has kept her personal life relatively private. She dated actor Dennis Gagomiros from 1994 to 2001, and was previously engaged to her “Our Very Own” co-star Richard Jenik, but they broke off their two-year engagement in 2006. She was most recently linked to production manager Philip Joncas, whom she met while filming 2013’s “The Way Way Back,” but they split in 2017 after five years together.

[From Page Six]

There are several high-profile childfree celebrity women who have similar views, that they’re really happy that they chose differently than most women of their generation. I still remember Mary J. Blige saying “I like my freedom. I like being able to get up and go and move and do what I wanna do. I don’t want to have to tend to someone all the time, you know?” Kim Cattrall has also made various badass comments about being childfree. Anyway, I’m glad Allison just decided to spend her life having fun, working hard and being fabulous.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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15 Responses to “Allison Janney: ‘I knew I never wanted to have kids… I’ve always known’”

  1. QuiteContrary says:

    I would watch Allison Janney read a dictionary. She’s absolutely brilliant.

    (Don’t sleep on her sitcom “Mom.” I watched it just for her but the other cast members are great, too.)

    • Ariel says:

      I ADORE Mom.
      Janney is an amazing physical comedian, and I hope Bonnie was as fun to play as she was to watch.

      My only issue with Mom is that, like many other chuck lorre sitcoms (that I also love) the Mom cast is painfully white.

    • Traveller says:

      Agree, Allison Janney is superb in everything. I watch whatever she is in.
      She was fantastic in the “west wing”, hilarious in “mom” and loved seeing her in “The Diplomat” series recently.

      Like her, childfree by choice here with no regrets. Everyone should just “do you” and let everyone else live their lives. Also, glad she didn’t feel compelled to say what a great auntie she is to someone’s kids as if to redeem herself in the eyes of others for not wanting her own (not disparaging anyone who loves being a great auntie though) .
      Not one is better than the other – each is very different with both positives and negatives – up to the individual which one outweighs the other. No judgement necessary – to each their own.

  2. Normades says:

    My best friend in college was like that. She knew that she didn’t want children and we (embarrassed to say now) used to tell her she would probably change her mind in her 30s. Nope. We are now 50 and I respect her so much for following her heart and not doing or being something that she didn’t want. Being childless by choice is something that should be more normalized in our society

  3. Ariel says:

    Love her so much.
    Her Mom character Bonnie was AMAZING, and the absolute antithesis of CJ Craig on the west wing.

    As an unmarried child free woman in her 50s, I love this.

    Because the norm is marriage and babies, and since it is what the majority of society enjoys, we are all steered in that direction.

    But have you ever met a woman who had kids, because that’s what “everyone” does, and didn’t stop to think about what SHE wanted.
    They absolutely love their kids, but it’s not the life they wanted. -and you can see it.

    But I do remember falling deeply in love and wanting to like- make more love, and I thought oh- this is the feeling that drives women to have babies. I still knew I didn’t want any, but the feeling was wild.

    Motherhood is too difficult and too all encompassing to do if I didn’t really want it.

    Damn. Allison Janney is fabulous.
    May be time for a Mom rewatch.

  4. ChillinginDC says:

    Child free and definitely don’t regret it.

  5. Jenny says:

    Allison was easily the best of a really stellar West Wing cast. I’m a self admitted “Wing Nut”, I’ve read practically everything ever written about that series. The one thing that very diverse cast agreed on was that Janney was the most gifted actor on the show. They were all vying to play scenes opposite her because she elevated the work every time. I love her so much. Motherhood and marriage are not the only path to a fulfilling life, she’s certainly proof of that!
    When you’re as busy as she is I’m sure she’s more than content with her child free choice.

  6. Kaaaaz says:

    She needs to drop a single so she can be an EGOT.

  7. Wednesday Addams says:

    I’m 71, and am happily child-free. My closest friends are also child-free. I always enjoyed being an auntie to my sister’s kids, but was glad to give them back to their moms at the end of the day.

  8. Aimee says:

    She’s amazing, what a talent. And it really seems like she’s living her best life.

  9. Fredi says:

    My two older sisters, two older cousins, and four of my best female friends are all child-free, not married, and are the most fun, patient, and badass ladies I know.

  10. Gravitas says:

    First-born daughter in a passel of siblings, I felt I’d already done it. Childfree and happy as a lark.

  11. ApplesPie says:

    Oh, I adore my two cats, greet the squirrels outside, help the turtles to cross streets and feed our hummingbirds (in the summer) and titmouse (in winter).
    I’ve never felt like I needed a child in my life.

    • Jazz Hands says:

      You and I would get along well! We inherited a senior cat who quickly became the center of our universe. I too greet the squirrels (by name! it’s easy to tell them apart when you pay attention). They feast on healthy nuts which they begrudgingly share with a number of bluejays, cardinals, sparrows and occasionally a rabbit or skunk.

  12. smcollins says:

    Love her, she’s always the highlight of everything she’s in. I remember reading an interview of hers years ago and of course the kids/babies question came up, and I clearly remember her answer to being child-free: “I’d rather regret *not* having kids than regret *having* them.” I thought that was a fantastic answer.

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