Michelle Yeoh is in Wicked. I feel like people have sort of missed that. Yeoh won the Best Actress Oscar last year, which was well-deserved not only for Everything Everywhere All At Once, but for her entire career. Her post-Oscar work has been all over the place though – a Netflix series (canceled after one season), A Haunting in Venice (another fruity Ken Brannagh-as-Poirot outing), some voice work and now a smallish part in Wicked. Yeoh likes to keep working though, so I suspect she just says yes to a lot of things she’s offered. Anyway, as Yeoh promoted Wicked, she ended up talking about her first marriage and infertility.
Michelle Yeoh is opening up about how infertility has impacted her life. On Monday, Nov. 18, the actress, 62, spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour about how she “felt like a failure” for not being able to have children.
“And I think the worst moment to go through is every month you feel like such a failure,” she said. “And then you go, why? And I think at some point you stop blaming yourself. I go, there are certain things in your body that doesn’t function in a certain way. That’s how it is…You just have to let go and move on. And I think you come to a point where you have to stop blaming you.”
She also opened up about how her infertility impacted her first marriage with businessman Sir Dickson Poon, to whom she was married from 1988 to 1992. Explaining that it “took a long time” for her to come to terms with not having her own biological children, Yeoh added “because that also maybe would be the main factor that broke up my first marriage.” However, the Wicked star revealed that the breakup was necessary as “in 10 years or 20 years, I still can’t give him the family that he craves.”
Yeoh went on to urge couples to have conversations about family planing at the beginning of their relationships. Poon went on to have children, with Yeoh being the godmother of his first child.
Now married to French motor racing executive Jean Todt, the star added that although she still thinks about not being able to have children of her own, she is grateful to be a grandmother thanks to her stepson. “I’m 62. Of course I’m not going to have a baby right now, but the thing is we just had a grandchild,” she said. “Then you feel you’re still very, very blessed because you do have a baby in your life.”
I honestly didn’t know that Michelle was childfree because of infertility – I thought it was by choice. I agree that no one should blame themselves for infertility and I also agree that family planning conversations should happen early in a relationship, basically as soon as you start imagining a future with someone. That being said, even with the family-planning discussions, many people don’t know they have fertility issues until they’re married and actively trying to conceive. Anyway, I’m glad Michelle has had a full life of great roles and love, and she still gets to be a stepmom and grandmother. I bet she loves being a grandmother.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – NOVEMBER 09: Michelle Yeoh wearing Balenciaga FW24 Couture arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Universal Pictures’ ‘Wicked’ held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at The Music Center on November 9, 2024 in Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 932685125, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Michelle Yeoh, Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – NOVEMBER 09: Michelle Yeoh wearing Balenciaga FW24 Couture arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Universal Pictures’ ‘Wicked’ held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at The Music Center on November 9, 2024 in Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 932685269, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Michelle Yeoh, Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- Celebs and Cast members attend the Wicked film premiere at the Royal Festival Hall,Image: 936089370, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Michelle Yeoh, Credit line: Phil Lewis/Wenn/Avalon
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- Michelle Yeoh attends “Wicked: Part One” UK Premiere at The Royal Festival Hall in London, England. UK. Monday 18th November 2024 -,Image: 936244610, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NORESTRICTIONS, Model Release: no, Pictured: Wicked: Part One – UK Premiere, Credit line: James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon
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- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Michelle Yeoh Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
I am not child-free by choice but because I didn’t find a loving partner to share my life with. I know it’s patriarchal thinking, but I’m not wealthy like Mindy Kaling, or Lucy Liu. I couldn’t/can’t even afford adoption. I thought I would be devastated at not having and a child and I’m not.
I think it’s great that she shared this. I know three of my friends who have had fertility issues and had their babies through IVF. They went through so much heart ache before the birth of their children. But women should know that it’s okay not to be able to get pregnant. You’re not less valuable.
Infertility is truly so devastating and heartbreaking. I have friends who will never ever be out of medical debt for trying to get pregnant via IVF.
I have another that went through 6 rounds of IVf for her first child. And then her husband just would not drop it. He wanted another. She’s gone through so many more rounds because she’s terrified he will leave her- because he says that he will take their child and has convinced her that she’s fundamentally broken as a human being and is unable to take care of anyone properly.
She tried well over 10 more times after. I lost count around 12 and she wouldn’t tell me when she was going through another round because her friends were more supportive than her husband and it was destroying her. I don’t know how he can demand that of her. I hate it. And it finally stopped when she hit menopause.
I could not believe that a dr would continue to allow the treatments, esp with how hard they were on her body and mind. It was obviously abuse. And he refused the idea of a surrogate even though it would have been so much less expensive.
ABYWAY.
It’s truly brave to talk about something so painful and still the subject of so mu ch stigma. I admire her so much for addressing it. Her realization that this was just something her body can’t do is profound. So many women can’t get to that point because of family, societal and frankly – from the blame of their spouses.
Also- SHES 62?!?? Sis. So much of Asian skincare is just light years ahead of western skincare. Not to mention excellent healthy food and genetics in her case. Wow. She’s that so gorgeous.
Am so sorry to hear what your friend went through with her unsupportive partner. But just to be clear people go through menopause at different ages, including younger than the average. It’s a bit arbitrary and outdated given where the science is at to imply that IVF should not be available if they’ve gone through menopause. Perhaps that’s not how you meant it, but let’s give folks a chance at parenthood if that’s what they want, rather than apply outdated approaches limiting their options.
The late Kirstie Alley also spoke about this.
Ditto, Dolly Parton and Jennifer Aniston.
It’s a very real thing, sadly I’m not sure sensitivity around it will ever evolve.
Not in real world anyway.
Thank you, Michelle for raising awareness about infertility. My husband and I always planned on having two children even before we were married. Then it took us six years of trying to finally have our baby. 3 miscarriages and 2 years of infertility. So Kaiser is right in that many of us have no idea we are going to be challenged in our family planning until after we are married.
We were finally able to have our daughter thanks to the miracle of IVF (and yes we were considering adoption if our 2nd round of IVF did not work out which it did and we chose fertility treatment first because our insurance covered it). And now that option might be threatened in the U.S. because of the dark days of Trump that are upon us.
This is the damage that conservative society does to females. Brainwashing them to think that they are not women if they don’t have children. Females are not encouraged to figure out who they are in their 20s. They’re pressured to become unpaid maids chasing after children and coddling the husband. By the time they’re in their late 30s early 40s females end up dissatisfied and disillusioned with life, stunted by marriage and motherhood instead of reaching their full potential.
I didn’t have kids, in part because I found myself engaged to a man who I soon realized would be a nightmare co-parent. But I also wasn’t sure I would have the energy for motherhood, so even at a young age I was on the fence about having kids. Now I have a wonderful partner and I’m so happy I did not have children because I really would not want to leave them to fend for themselves in this challenging and polluted world. I’m honestly not sure how people who have kids convince themselves that things are going to be okay for their kids and grandkids.