- - “We Should Ban This”: 10 Wild Backlashes That Erupted After Stars Adopted Or Turned To Surrogacy

Marina UrmanDecember 23, 2025 at 9:32 AM

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When you’re a celebrity, even the smallest moves are carefully scrutinized and debated. If outfit choices get strangers talking, you can imagine what happens with more life-changing decisions, like how they choose to have children.

The truth is that there isn’t just one path when it comes to starting a family. Science has made it possible to opt for surrogacy, which is when someone carries and gives birth to a baby for another person or couple. Others choose to expand their families by adopting an orphaned child.

For celebrities, decisions that would otherwise be considered private are amplified for millions to see, leading to harsh criticism.

Some critics have accused the stars of “social surrogacy,” which is when someone opts for surrogacy not for infertility reasons, but for lifestyle ones, like avoiding pregnancy weight gain or interruptions to their careers. Critics have also raised ethical concerns about surrogacy, likening the process to “renting” a woman’s body.

Meanwhile, those who adopted have faced claims that they exposed the children to terrible parents or bypassed a country’s adoption laws simply because they were A-listers.

Amid the backlash, fans have defended these celebrities, emphasizing that the most important thing is for a child to feel loved, welcomed, and looked after, regardless of how they came into their parents’ lives.

Here are ten cases of famous parents who built their families through adoption or surrogacy and faced criticism for their choices.

#1 Millie Bobby Brown

The Stranger Things actress surprised her fans in August when she announced she had become a mother at the age of 21.Millie and her 23-year-old husband, Jake Bongiovi, a model and the son of Jon Bon Jovi, adopted a baby girl a year after tying the knot.The couple chooses to protect the baby’s privacy by not disclosing her name and shielding her from paparazzi cameras.“For me, it’s really important to protect her and her story until she’s old enough to potentially one day share it herself,” Millie said. “It’s not my place to purposefully put her in the spotlight unwillingly. If she chooses to share her personality one day with the world, like I did when I was young, that’s something we’d support.“But right now, as she’s so little… As her parents, it’s our job to protect her from that.”Many argued that 21 and 23 are too young to become parents, while others celebrated the couple’s decision to embark on their new chapter of parenthood.The couple faced similar judgmental comments when they decided to get married last year.“I understood I was young. I know that, I truly just can’t say it enough,” Millie said in a December interview with British Vogue, emphasizing, “When you meet that person, you know it.”Millie explained that her own mother also had her at 21, and motherhood has always been one of her strongest desires.“Since I was a baby, I told my mom, like, ‘Baby dolls.’ I wanted to be a mom just like the way my mom was to me,” shared the British star.As for Jake, the model has a similar example of a lasting relationship on his side of the family, as his parents are high-school sweethearts.

© Photo: Instagram/milliebobbybrown

#2 Madonna

The Queen of Pop is a happy yet exhausted mother of six. In 2023, she described motherhood as “the most difficult, hardest battle,” and said raising children is “a work of art,” for which no one is given a manual.She welcomed her first child, Lourdes Leon, with her then-boyfriend, fitness trainer Carlos Leon, in 1996.After splitting from Carlos Leon, Madonna began dating director Guy Ritchie. The two welcomed a son, Rocco Ritchie, in 2000.Six years later, she and Guy Ritchie adopted the then-1-year-old David Banda during a humanitarian trip to Malawi.Madonna said in 2019 that, of all her children, David is the one she has “the most in common with” and that he has “more of my DNA than any of my children so far."Recalling the negative reactions to her adoption news, the mom said, "Every newspaper said I k*dnapped him. In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Wait a minute. I’m trying to save somebody’s life.’” Madonna was also accused of using her money and celebrity status to fast-track the adoption process, but she always insisted she followed standard procedures.In 2009, the Material Girl hitmaker received approval to adopt Chifundo "Mercy" James, born in Malawi in 2006, as a single mother after her divorce from Richie.Madonna’s youngest daughters, twins Stella and Estere, were born in Malawi in 2012. She adopted them when they were 5 years old in 2017."It's like they were always here," the pop star shared at the time. "It didn't take long for them to get acclimated. They've learned, in time, that I'm their mother and nothing is going to change that.”Madonna’s first tattoo in 2020 was the initials of all six of her children on her wrist.Though she has described motherhood as a “profession that requires a lot of time,” the Grammy winner embraces the chaotic lifestyle of raising six children and the lives she has changed through adoption."Sometimes I would just close my eyes and just think, 'Why isn't my kitchen filled with dancing children?’” she shared in 2017 shortly after adopting the twins. “There's so many children that need a home. I thought, 'What am I waiting for? Just do it.'”

© Photo: Getty/James Devaney

#3 Lily Collins

The 36-year-old Emily in Paris actress announced in February that she had welcomed her first child with her husband, film director Charlie McDowell, via surrogacy."Welcome to the centre of our world Tove Jane McDowell," the couple wrote."Words will never express our endless gratitude for our incredible surrogate and everyone who helped us along the way."Lily and Charlie accompanied the post with a photo of their baby girl sleeping alongside a blanket with her name."We love you to the moon and back again,” they wrote.Immediately after the announcement, people began questioning why the couple had chosen the path of surrogacy and harshly accused the actress of social surrogacy.“We should ban this practice,” one critic fumed, while another wrote, “Translation: they rented a woman’s body and bought a baby.”Charlie, the baby’s father, hit back at the “unkind messages,” writing, “It’s OK to not know why someone might need a surrogate to have a child. It’s OK to not know the motivations of a surrogate regardless of what you assume.”He added, “And it's ok to spend less time spewing hateful words into the world, especially in regards to a beautiful baby girl who has brought a lot of love into people's lives."Lily did not address the criticism or explain why she had opted for surrogacy. In her 2017 memoir, she revealed she was worried about not being able to become pregnant after she stopped menstruating for a “couple of years” in her early twenties during her battle with an eating dis*rder.“Between the starvation, the diet pills, the laxatives and throwing up, I not only lost all of my energy, but my body started to shut down,” she wrote in Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me.“My period stopped for a couple of years, and I was terrified I had ruined my chances of having kids.”

© Photo: Instagram/lilyjcollins

#4 Kim Kardashian

The reality star welcomed her first child with Kanye West, a daughter named North, in 2013. Two years later, she gave birth to a son, Saint.The couple had their third child, a daughter named Chicago, via surrogacy in 2018 after Kim’s previous high-risk pregnancies."We are incredibly grateful to our surrogate who made our dreams come true with the greatest gift one could give and to our wonderful doctors and nurses for their special care," the mom announced at the time.A year later, the couple welcomed another child, a son named Psalm, via surrogate.After welcoming North and Saint, Kim’s doctors informed her it wouldn’t be safe for her to become pregnant again due to her issues with placenta accreta, also known as retained placenta.In placenta accreta, the placenta grows too deeply into the wall of the uterus and doesn’t separate easily following childbirth. The condition affects up to 1 in 533 pregnancies and can cause life-threatening hemorrhaging, according to the Cleveland Clinic.Before deciding to take the surrogacy route, Kim reportedly underwent surgery in an attempt to correct the medical issue, but the procedure was unsuccessful.“I’ve gone through so much with really bad deliveries that the doctors don’t feel like it’s safe for me to conceive again myself,” Kim said in a 2017 episode of her show. “I want my kids to have siblings and I want to know that I did everything I could to make this happen.”Kim has responded to the critics who accused her of choosing “the easy way out,” stating that their view is “completely wrong” and highlighting the challenges behind her decision—mainly, entrusting the care of her child to a complete stranger.“I think it is so much harder to go through it this way, because you are not really in control. You pick someone that you completely trust, but it is still hard. It's definitely a harder experience than I anticipated just in the control area."The mom of four explained that, even though she “hated” being pregnant, she would have preferred to carry all her children herself if she could.

© Photo: Instagram/kimkardashian

#5 Priyanka Chopra

The 43-year-old Indian actress was the subject of criticism in 2022 after announcing that she had welcomed a daughter, Malti, via surrogacy with her husband, Nick Jonas.Priyanka was accused of "outsourcing" her pregnancy, “renting” a womb out of vanity, and paying for a “ready-made” baby, with whom critics claimed she wouldn’t have the same emotional attachment as she would if she had given birth naturally.Responding to the criticism, the Citadel actress told British Vogue, “I’ve developed a tough hide when people talk about me. But it’s so painful when they talk about my daughter. I’m like, ‘Keep her out of it.’“I know what it felt like to hold her little hands when they were trying to find her veins. So no, she’s not going to be gossip.”Malti had to be delivered preterm—a full trimester before her due date—and was intubated after her birth. Priyanka recounted that her baby was “so small, smaller than my hand.”Regarding the circumstances that led her and Nick to opt for surrogacy, she explained that she had experienced “medical complications” and that surrogacy was “a necessary step” in the couple’s goal of starting a family.The former Miss World described her and Nick’s surrogate as “generous, kind, lovely and funny” and thanked her for “taking care of this precious gift for us for six months.”She then addressed her haters directly during her Vogue interview, telling them, “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve been through.“And just because I don’t want to make my medical history, or my daughter’s, public doesn’t give you the right to make up whatever the reasons were.”

© Photo: Instagram/priyankachopra

#6 Sarah Jessica Parker

SJP and her husband, Matthew Broderick, decided to use a surrogate to expand their family.“It would have been odd to have made this choice if I was able to have had successful pregnancies since my son's birth,” explained the Sex and the City star, then aged 44.Sarah and Matthew welcomed twin daughters, Marion and Tabitha, in 2009.The couple also shares a son, James, born in 2002.Before the twins were born, Sarah shared that she was “greatly concerned on an hourly basis” about her unborn children’s health.The Golden Globe winner thanked Michelle Ross, the woman carrying the twins, for her “incredibly generous and gracious choice” and described her as an “honorable person.”“You can't express enough how much you think about decisions like this... She's strong, bright, independent, thoughtful, caring, gracious, and generous,” Sarah said, as per Marie Claire.According to a report by The Post, the A-list couple paid Michelle $30,000 to carry their twins. The report described the surrogate from Martins Ferry, Ohio, as “working hard to get by” one year after the delivery and being pregnant again with another couple’s baby.At the time, she reportedly lived in a $90,000 rented house with her 5-year-old son, Brayden, and her boyfriend, Justin.During her high-profile pregnancy with the twins, Michelle’s eastern Ohio home was broken into and her phone and computer were hacked. Ultrasound photos and surrogacy files were gone when she returned.Justin said Michelle had a “really hard” time with the incident, that included her having to take the stand. He added that Michelle “really believes in surrogacy and wants to get the word out, but she doesn’t want to be in the limelight.”

© Photo: Getty/MEGA

#7 Khloé Kardashian

The youngest Kardashian sister became a mom in 2018, when she gave birth to her daughter, True, whom she shares with basketball player Tristan Thompson.Khloé welcomed a second child with Tristan, a son named Tatum, via surrogacy in 2022. Just days after the embryo was implanted in the surrogate, the reality star learned that Tristan had secretly fathered a child with another woman, prompting her to end the relationship.During her appearance on the SHE MD podcast, Khloé said she struggled to process that she was going to have another child because she wasn’t the one carrying the baby, in addition to the trauma of her then-boyfriend fathering another child.“I admittedly buried my head in the sand and I said to Dr. A, 'I can't do this.' And the whole surrogacy pregnancy, I was really detached,” the mom revealed."I couldn't really face it. I very much think I was in denial that this is happening. So I didn't get to really attach during the pregnancy part.”In an episode of The Kardashians filmed when Tatum was three months old, Khloé sparked controversy when she compared her newest experience of motherhood to raising True and admitted that she struggled to connect with her son."The connection ... took days with True. With him, it's taking months and we still don’t have a complete bond."Khloé expressed guilt over her feelings, saying, “I’m like, ‘Why isn’t it the same?’ But I know it will be.”Their mother-son bond has since strengthened. Last year, Khloé celebrated her 3-year-old in a birthday post, calling him “beautiful, polite, intelligent, and loving.” She’s also affectionately called him "baby Rob" due to his resemblance to his uncle, Rob Kardashian.

© Photo: Instagram/khloekardashian

#8 Elton John

The British musician and his husband, David Furnish, had two children, Zachary, born in 2010, and Elijah, born in 2013, with the help of a surrogate.During an interview with Andy Cohen last year, Elton was asked about becoming a father later in life. "It's the greatest thing I've ever done,” the 78-year-old replied."For me personally, I've had an amazing life, great career, incredible achievements, music, blah, blah, blah, but I would say that our sons, and David, are the most important things to me," the Your Song singer expressed."I think anyone who is gay that brings up a child deserves applause, because there's so many people that say it shouldn't happen."Elton described the experience of fatherhood as “the greatest gift you could possibly have.”In 2017, when Italy was debating legislation to legalize homosexual civil unions, Senator Maurizio Gasparri labeled Elton as “vile” and “disgusting.” The politician also referred to the singer as a “rich, arrogant man who exploited other people’s desperation” by using a surrogate.In an interview he gave when Zachary was one year old, Elton said he and David want to raise their child so that he doesn’t take anything for granted in life."The worst thing you can do to a child, and I've seen it happen so many times, is the silver spoon," the dad explained. "Being the child of a famous person is very difficult and we're very well aware of the pitfalls of that.""Our life might be very luxurious but it's all come from hard work," added David, a movie producer."Both Elton and I have sort of earned everything we've done in our careers and furthered our education through our own drive and our own ambitions, and we want Zachary to be exactly the same sort of way."

© Photo: Getty/Michael Kovac

#9 Mia Farrow

“I never thought I would have so many children. That was never a plan,” Mia told Vanity Fair in 2013.The actress has welcomed 14 children into her life, including four biological and 10 adopted kids. Many of her children’s lives were marked by tragedy, including allegations of s*xual ab*se against their adoptive father and losing their lives at a young age.Mia had three biological sons, twins Matthew and Sascha Previn and Fletcher Previn, with the late composer André Previn, whom she married in 1970.Toward the end of the Vietnam War, Mia and André adopted a Vietnamese baby girl, Lark, who passed away from complications of HIV/AIDS in 2008.The Previns also adopted a girl, Daisy, in 1976, when she was 2 years old. Additionally, they adopted Soon-Yi from Korea when she was 7. Soon-Yi later married Woody Allen, and the two are believed to have started their relationship while the filmmaker was still in a long-term relationship with Mia.In 1980, around the time Mia began dating Woody Allen, she adopted Moses from Korea. He was later also adopted by the filmmaker.Five years later, Mia adopted a girl, Dylan, when she was 2 weeks old. Woody formally adopted her when she was 7.Dylan has accused her adoptive father of touching her inappropriately when she was a child and taking her away from her mother and siblings “to be alone with him.” The director has consistently denied the allegations, and Mia has publicly defended her daughter.In 1987, the Great Gatsby actress welcomed a biological son, Ronan Farrow, with Woody.Mia adopted Tam from Vietnam in 1992. Tam lost her life at the age of 17 from an accidental prescription overd*se related to migraines and a heart condition.She also adopted Isaiah, an African American boy, in 1992. Two years later, she adopted Thaddeus, a boy from Calcutta, India. Thaddeus took his own life in 2016 after an abrupt breakup.Finally, Mia adopted daughters Kaeli-Shea “Quincy” and Minh in 1994 and 1995, respectively.

© Photo: Getty/New York Daily News Archive

#10 Anderson Cooper

The famous journalist is the proud father of two boys, Wyatt and Sebastian. His decision to welcome a baby via surrogacy drew harsh criticism in 2020, with people calling his decision “ethically dubious” and questioning him for not adopting one of the “hundreds of thousands of existing children” who need a home in the US.Anderson, who came out as gay in 2012, named his first child after his late father, Wyatt Cooper.In 2022, the famous CNN anchor announced at the beginning of his show that he had become a father for a second time to another son, Sebastian. He and his ex, Benjamin Maisani, co-parent both boys.Anderson revealed that his late mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, offered to carry his baby at age 85 when he first expressed interest in becoming a father.“She was like, ‘Well, the most amazing thing happened. I went to the gynecologist the other day and she said the most amazing thing. She told me I could still bear children.’”Anderson said his mother’s wild ideas are the reason he can be stone-faced while interviewing any type of guest.“I’ve spent my life not reacting to my mom’s crazy statements, so I said, ‘Yes mom, I think that is amazing that a gynecologist told you, that at age 85, you could still bear a child. I think that’s amazing.’“I said, ‘Mom, I love you. But even for you this is bats**t crazy.’”The Anderson Cooper 360° host described fatherhood as a “dream come true,” sharing that there’s “nothing better” than reading to his boys and having them fall asleep in his arms.

© Photo: Getty/Mike Coppola

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”