Julie Tremaine
Sun, July 26, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC
Not every love story includes having kids — and for many couples who live their lives in the spotlight, having children hasn’t been the right choice for them
Comedians Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman tried to have children “the old-fashioned way” but never had them, the Will & Graceactress said on the Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonaldpodcast in May 2024
“It just wasn’t meant to be,” she said, adding that the couple never had “an organic burning desire” to grow their family
Other couples have chosen to prioritize their careers and time together, like Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen
“Some people want kids, some people don’t want kids,” he said in a March 2023 episode of the Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast. “I think a lot of people have kids before they even think about it, from what I’ve seen. Honestly, you just are told, ‘You go through life, you get married, you have kids. That’s what happens.’ And me and my wife, neither of us were like that.”
Below, see eight celebrity couples who chose not to have kids
Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen
As actors and directors, Seth and Lauren have worked together many times, both on films and their nonprofit, Hilarity for Charity. On the Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast, Rogen attributed some of his career success to not raising a family, saying that the choice “has helped me succeed.”
The couple married in 2011 after six years of dating. “Honestly, the older we get, the more happy and reaffirmed we are with our choice,” Seth added, noting that they love being able “to do whatever we want.”
“And we can just do that, and we don’t have to have a child, which the world does not need right now,” he continued. “So yeah, we’re very happy with our choice to not have kids.”
02 of 08
Dolly Parton and Carl Dean
Country superstar Dolly Parton and her husband Carl Dean, who were married from 1966 until his death in 2025, never had children of their own
In her memoir Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,Parton spoke candidly about not having children with Dean. “Carl and I had never really wanted to have kids,” she wrote. “I love kids. I’m crazy about them, as long as they’re somebody else’s. People had often asked me about having children, and I always felt guilty and selfish if I said I didn’t want them. So sometimes I would just say I couldn’t have them, and that lie made me feel even more guilty.”
Parton credits her long career to that freedom. “Since I had no kids and my husband was pretty independent, I had freedom,” she told Oprah Winfrey in November 2020. “So I think a big part of my whole success is the fact that I was free to work.”
The couple was heavily involved in the lives of Parton’s nieces and nephews, with some relatives calling her “Aunt Granny.”
“God has a plan for everything,” she said on Todayin October 2017. “I think it probably was his plan for me not to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine. And they are now.”
03 of 08
Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally
Offerman and Mullally met in 2000 while they were working on a play together. They married in a surprise ceremony at their Los Angeles home in 2003
Their ages — the couple met when he was 29 and she was 41 — contributed to the decision not to have kids
“I never had a burning desire to have children,” Mullally told GQ in May 2017. “But then I met Nick, and I thought, ‘This is the only person I’d do this with.’ So we tried, but I was a little long in the tooth for that sort of thing.”
She added, “We tried for about a year or so and it didn’t happen, and took that to mean it wasn’t meant to be.”
04 of 08
Alison Brie and Dave Franco
Togetherstars Alison Brie and Dave Franco met during Mardi Gras in 2011 and married in 2017. They’ve worked together many times and are “really devoted” cat parents, but haven’t wanted to start a human family
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“It’s great because I don’t have to worry about when should I get pregnant — between seasons, while we’re shooting the show — I don’t think about it every day,” the actress said in 2018, when she was filming GLOW
“It would be nice, but I think of all the things that would be so stressful,” she continued. “I think about how much we’re involved in our cats’ lives. Oh my God, if it was a child!”
05 of 08
Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham
Media mogul and philanthropist Winfrey has been in a relationship with partner Stedman Graham since 1986, but the couple has never married or had a family together
While she was hosting The Oprah Winfrey Show,Winfrey said she realized, “‘Whoa, I’m talking to a lot of messed-up people, and they are messed up because they had mothers and fathers who were not aware of how serious that job is.’ ”
“I don’t have the ability to compartmentalize the way I see other women do,” she told PEOPLE in October 2019. “It is why, throughout my years, I have had the highest regard for women who choose to be at home [with] their kids, because I don’t know how you do that all day long. Nobody gives women the credit they deserve.”
She added that she has “not had one regret” about not having kids
“I also believe that part of the reason why I don’t have regrets is because I got to fulfill it in the way that was best for me: the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa,” Winfrey said. “Those girls fill that maternal fold that I perhaps would have had. In fact, they overfill — I’m overflowed with maternal.”
06 of 08
John Cena and Shay Shariatzadeh
Actor and former pro wrestler John Cena met engineer Shay Shariatzadeh at a restaurant in Vancouver. The couple married in a small ceremony in 2020
Speaking with Drew Barrymore on her talk show, Cena revealed why he and Shariatzadeh haven’t been in a rush to start a family
“It’s hard work,” he said. “It’s hard work to balance the time I need to run myself correctly. It’s hard work to be the best partner and husband I can be to my loving wife.”
He continued, saying, “This is just my perspective; I think just because you might be good at something, for me, is not a strong-enough reason to do that. You have to have a passion for it … it’s like saying to somebody, ‘Man, you know, you are pretty good with your hands. You’d be a great carpenter.’ ”
07 of 08
Christopher Walken and Georgianne Walken
Oscar-winning actor Christopher Walken and Emmy-winning casting director Georgianne Walken met as dancers in a production of West Side Storyin 1963 and married six years later in 1969
They’ve both had prolific careers, which Walken said wouldn’t have been possible if they had been raising a family
“I do like to work as much as I can because I don’t have children, I don’t have hobbies, I don’t do anything else,” he told the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2005. “And I’m glad that I don’t have children. I have two brothers and they have plenty of children, they come to my house and I am always very glad when they leave. I have a wife, I’ve been married for thirty-five years, and I have some cats, but I can open the door and they go out, so it’s quite nice.”
Talking to The Guardianin March 2013, Walken said he “absolutely [would] not” have had the same career with kids. “I’m sure many of the kids I knew as a child would have continued in show business, but they had kids of their own, had to do something dependable,” he said. “I didn’t, so I could get by even in periods of unemployment.”
08 of 08
Ina and Jeffrey Garten
Longtime loves Ina and Jeffrey Garten met when they were 16 and 18, respectively. The Barefoot Contessastar married her betrothed in 1968
Garten has had an enormously successful culinary career, but she doesn’t attribute her decision not to have kids to work
“I grew up in a family that wasn’t a happy family, so I couldn’t understand why people had kids,” she told PEOPLE ahead of her 2024 memoir release, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. “Nobody had any fun in my family. Now I understand it, but at the time, when I was 25 and 30, I just didn’t. It was nothing I really wanted to do.”
However, she believes her longtime husband would have been a good father. “I think Jeffrey would have been a great parent,” she told Julia Louis-Dreyfus on her Wiser Than Me podcast in April 2024. “He would have really loved having children. But, he wanted me to be happy, and it was okay with him.”
Read the original article on People
