It’s no news to anybody that America is in a current state of social unrest regarding policing and racism, fighting outdated social stigmas, and pushing for meaningful reform. From everyday citizens to major brands and celebrities, everyone is donating to anti-racist organizations, fighting to even the scales. And recently, NBA legend Michael Jordan announced that over the next ten years, he’ll be donating $100 million through the Jordan Brand.

Michael Jordan’s Statement

Jordan broke the news of his decision through a statement that was both simple, yet it conveyed a powerful message — the year may be 2020, and many things may have changed, but the most important ones haven’t. So, to seek social justice, greater access to education to people of color, and racial equality, Michael Jordan and Jordan Brand will be reaching out to organizations dedicated to these issues and providing financial help to their causes.

Michael Stays Away From Politics

Despite his social status, Michael Jordan has never been “political” and has, in fact, shown his reluctance to get into such matters. His famous observation that “Republicans buy sneakers, too” was quite telling of his views. Back in 2016, he even donated one million dollars to organizations on both sides of the policing debate: the International Association of Chiefs of Police (The Institute for Community-Police Relations) and the NAACP Legal Defence Fund.

However, this time, he’s dedicating a much larger sum exclusively to anti-racist organizations. That means he may finally be willing to get political over the Black Lives Matter movement — a topic he probably has a lot to say after his long career in the spotlight. How and whether this would happen, we can only speculate at this moment as there is no news in support of that. But, stranger things have happened, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

From watching TV and movies, it might seem that just about everyone has kids. In reality, lots of people decide not to, for all sorts of reasons. There’s more than one way to have a family, and lots of folks decide that having children just isn’t for them. Maybe it’s to focus on their career, for financial reasons, or just that they can’t be bothered! Let’s see which famous people have decided not to have kids.

Iconic actress Betty White has been in the entertainment business for over 90 years. She thinks that if she had children, she wouldn’t have had her pioneering career.

She said, “I’m so compulsive about stuff; I know if I had ever gotten pregnant, of course, that would have been my whole focus. But I didn’t choose to have children because I’m focused on my career. And I just don’t think as compulsive as I am, that I could manage both.”

There are lots of stereotypes about people who don’t want to have children, especially women. Comedian and TV host Chelsea Handler has never really been concerned about stereotypes.

The upfront comedian admitted, “I definitely don’t want to have kids, because I don’t like them…I don’t think I’d be a great mother. I’m a great aunt or like friend of a mother. I don’t wanna have a kid and have it raised by a nanny, and I don’t have the time to raise a child.”

Speaking about her character Joyce Byers in Stranger Things, actress Winona Ryder has said, “I actually felt tremendous compassion for her.”

She explains, “I feel like she was one of these people that had dreams. But she had kids. And it made me think of all the women that I know who have kids, who when they talk about [anything negative about their lives as mothers], they always say, ‘But I love my kids, I wouldn’t trade them for the world.’”

It’s bound to be frustrating to be an actress in Hollywood and be constantly asked about children. We bet male movie stars don’t get so many inquiries about their intentions to start a family!

Actress Renée Zellweger has stated that, “Motherhood has never been an ambition. I don’t think like that.” The star has been in several high-profile relationships. She was engaged to actor Jim Carrey, married to country singer Kenny Chesney, and in a two-year relationship with actor Bradley Cooper.

Like some others on this list, Chr felt that having children would hold back his career. He said, “I’m sure many of the kids I knew as a child would have continued in showbusiness, but they had kids of their own, had to do something dependable. I didn’t, so I could get by even in periods of unemployment.”

The Oscar winning star has been married to former casting director Georgianne Thon for over 50 years!

High profile couple Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi have also decided to forgo having kids. Ellen has said, “We’d probably be great parents. But it’s a human being and unless you think you have excellent skills and have a drive or yearning in you to do that, the amount of work that that is and responsibility—I wouldn’t want to screw them up!”

Meanwhile, Portia agreed, saying, “you have to really want to have kids, and neither of us did.”

Queen of Burlesque Dita von Teese did want children at one stage, but doesn’t regret not being a mom.

Speaking about her relationship with Marilyn Manson, she said, “I was married to someone who was not cut-out to be a father. He could hardly take care of himself, let alone a child, so I changed my views, adapted accordingly, thought: It’s okay not to have children. Now I’m just going to watch how my life unfolds and see what happens.”

Country star Dolly Parton doesn’t think that having biological kids is the only way to have a family. She has explained, “I grew up in a big old family with eight kids younger than me, and several of my brothers and sisters came to live with me early on in my life. I’ve loved their kids just like they’re my grandkids, and now I’ve got great-grandkids!”

She continued, “I often think, it just wasn’t meant for me to have kids, so everybody’s kids can be mine.”

For actresses that want to become moms, they have to be strategic about when to do it. After all, once they have a child, they’ll want maternity leave to spend some time with their new bundle of joy.

For actress Alison Brie, that isn’t an issue. She says, “I don’t really want to have kids. It’s great because I don’t worry about when I should get pregnant — between seasons, while we’re shooting the show — I don’t think about it every day.”

Like her most famous on-screen character, actress Kim Cattrall isn’t bothered about not having kids. She has said, “When I was five, my fantasy was to have a hundred dogs and a hundred kids. I realized that so much of the pressure I was feeling was from outside sources, and I knew I wasn’t ready to take that step into motherhood.”

She continued, “Being a biological mother just isn’t part of my experience this time around.”

Another famous TV mom that doesn’t want kids is actress Tracee Ellis Ross. She agrees with Kim Cattrall that society pushes expectations on women.

The actress and singer has said, “The husband and the babies are the expectation of what’s supposed to happen at a certain point, and people fall back on, ‘Well, that’s the point of the human species, procreation.’ And I’m, like, ‘I think there are a lot of babies; isn’t that part of what’s going wrong, there’s too many?’”

While some women on this list always knew they didn’t want kids, some tried and then changed their path. Actress Aisha Tyler has spoken about her fertility issues, and how she and her husband decided to not have kids.

She said, “It really was a choice to stop…I wanted families [and] couples to know that it was a valid choice not to get on this crazy merry-go-round of IVF and tens and tens of thousands of dollars.”

For comedian Margaret Cho, motherhood would be too much of an emotional undertaking. In 2012 she wrote, “I don’t know if I could stand that kind of commitment, or if I am really honest, I don’t think that I could handle being that vulnerable to someone else.”

The actress and stand-up continued, “My child would have my heart completely, and having never truly given that over, in all my relationships in my life, starting with myself, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Some celebrities in particular have been hounded with questions about their plans for children. After the break-up of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt’s high-profile marriage, the world watched as he became a father multiple times. As a result, Aniston has been plagued with intrusive tabloid questions for years.

She has said, “I don’t like [the pressure] that people put on me, on women — that you’ve failed yourself as a female because you haven’t procreated. I don’t think it’s fair.”

It’s a common refrain for women on this list that they had to choose between career or kids. Maybe that’s due to the cost of childcare, or because there isn’t flexible enough maternity leave. Whatever it is, these women felt that society didn’t have space for them to do both things well.

Fleetwood Mac member and solo star Stevie Nicks has said, “It’s like, do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes.”

British actress Helen Mirren agrees that it’s irritating to always be asked about having kids. In fact, the star has said that only “boring old men” would ask her about “the baby question.”

She said, “It was not my destiny. I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn’t care what people thought.” The multi-award-winning actress has been married to American film director, Taylor Hackford, since 1997.

Actress and model Anjelica Huston was in a relationship with actor Jack Nicholson for almost 20 years. The relationship ended when the regularly unfaithful Nicholson fathered a child with actress Rebecca Broussard.

Huston has said, “There have been times when I wanted children and other times I’ve been grateful not to have them. I am a mess if I have to say goodbye to my dog for longer than five days. I don’t know how I would deal with kissing my children as I left for work.”

Superstar Kylie Minogue is the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, and she doesn’t have any children. The “Spinning Around” singer has said, “Of course I wonder what that would be like but, your destiny is your destiny.”

Kylie has no issues with being a step-mom though, saying she’d be happy if a future partner already had kids. The singer and actress has been in a relationship with Paul Solomons, the creative director of British GQ, since 2018.

Actress Marisa Tomei is sick of actresses always being asked about motherhood. She has stated, “I don’t know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings.” Just right!

More than that, Tomei regrets taking motherly roles on screen. She said, “I really regret starting down this road and I really regret starting to do that. I was, you know, talked into it […] and I really always felt like, ‘Oh I could play a lot of things.’”

For years now, Miley Cyrus has expressed that she doesn’t like doing things just because everyone else does. The genderqueer star felt restricted by her Disney past and has experimented with various looks and sounds.

Miley’s concerns with having kids are environmental. She said, “We’ve been doing the same thing to the earth that we do to women. We just take and take and expect it to keep producing. And it’s exhausted. It can’t produce. […] I refuse to hand that down to my child.”

Actress Jennifer Lawrence has also shared her desire to not have kids. She has said, “When I was 21 or 22 I was like, ‘I can’t wait to be a mother. Now I’m like…[shocked face]. They are actually getting less and less as I get older.’”

The American actress married art gallery director Cooke Maroney in 2019. Perhaps the star will be like some of the other actresses on this list that decided to focus on their careers rather than becoming moms.

There’s no doubt that Jon Hamm’s most famous character Don Draper didn’t exactly make a great father. Sure, Don had some moments of connection with his kids, but he mainly scarred them for life.

In real life, Jon Hamm has a similar attitude towards fatherhood. He has said, “I see my friends who have children and I’m like, ‘Dude, how are you even upright, much less here at work at 6 a.m.?’” The actor was in a relationship with actress Jennifer Westfeldt from 1997-2015.

Initially, Mavis Nicholson didn’t ever want to get married or have kids. She changed her mind about marriage when she fell for husband Jay Leno, but the pair have never had children.

Mavis has commented, “I remember telling my mother when I was 7 or 8 that I was never going to get married or have children. To me, this is the way women get caught.” The philanthropist has been involved in lots of feminist campaigns and keeps a much lower profile than her famous hubby.

Comedian Sarah Silverman has also decided not to have kids. Like many others on this list, she felt that she couldn’t have a successful career and be a mom. In 2017, she tweeted that she made her decision so she could tour, but pointed out that men don’t have to make the same tough choices.

She wrote that she would love to be a fun dad, “coming home from the road and being [her] best dad self.” We feel you, Sarah!

Next up is celebrity chef Rachael Ray, who also chose to focus on her busy career. The star said, “I think that I’m 40 years old, and I have an enormous amount of hours that have to be dedicated to work.”

She continued, “For me personally, I would need more time to feel like I’d be a good mom to my own child. I feel like a borderline good mom to my dog. So I can’t imagine if it was a human baby.”

And here’s another powerful woman that opted not to have kids so they could dedicate themselves to their career. TV host, philanthropist, and Queen of All Media Oprah Winfrey thinks her hypothetical kids would have hated her.

She said, “They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me, because something [in my life] would have had to suffer, and it would’ve probably been them.” Hey, if Oprah says it’s true, it’s true.

While some people know that they don’t want to have kids, others are open to the idea. Actress Allison Janney thinks she might have had children if she was with the right partner but otherwise doesn’t regret not becoming a mom.

She said, “I would rather regret not having kids than have kids and regret that. I’m OK with it.” On another occasion, the actress said “I’ve never had that instinct to have kids, I’m at peace with it.”

Comedian and actress Lily Tomlin knew that she wanted to focus all of her energy into her career. She has commented, “God only knows what I would have done with them, poor things.”

She continued, “I really do like kids, but there wouldn’t have been room in my life to raise children. I was so involved with my career, and I would have had to give up the career in large part because I could not possibly have short-changed the child.”

Our next celebrity couple without kids was in a similar situation to actress Aisha Tyler. Like her, they initially tried to have children, and then stopped when they didn’t conceive.

Megan Mullally has said, “I never had a burning desire to have children. 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. But we didn’t turn it into a soap opera.”

Actress Sarah Paulson has decided to freeze her eggs just in case she decides that she does want children. Otherwise, the star is happy without kids and doesn’t want to jump into something without really considering it.

The actress explained, “I love kids, but I’m very impulsive, and I was afraid that I would have children and then regret it.” Sarah Paulson has been in a relationship with actress Holland Taylor since 2015 and it looks like they’re perfectly happy without children.

Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple is more interested in parenting herself than any potential children. She has said, “I have a thing about, like, wanting to learn about parenting myself.”

She continues, “I’ve never wanted kids. But I do read about parenting a lot. For some reason it’s very interesting to me, I think because I’m just big on self-parenting.” We reckon this is a pretty savvy way to get through life—you’re doing a great job Fiona Apple!

Unlike some of the other Real Housewives of New York, Carole Radziwill isn’t into domestic life. The former journalist dated younger man Adam when she was on the reality series and clearly had some commitment issues.

Unsurprisingly then, Radzi hasn’t ever been interested in having kids. She said, “I knew that [late husband Anthony Radziwill] couldn’t have kids, and that wasn’t in any way a deal-breaker for me. I just wasn’t that girl who dreamed about getting married and having children. Those weren’t the priorities for me.”

Actor Ricky Gervais has been in a relationship with producer and author Jane Fallon since 1982. However, the outspoken atheist and vegetarian has never tied the knot because he doesn’t believe in God. Similarly, Gervais has never wanted children because “there are too many” and he “didn’t fancy” dedicating years to raising them.

The comedian has said, “I didn’t have a work ethic for such a long time. Imagine if I had a child like me? I didn’t start earning until I was 36.”

We’ve seen several celebrities so far that chose to not have children for ethical reasons. That might be because of environmental concerns, or because of over-population. Actress Ashley Judd is one of those, claiming “I do not need to go making ‘my own’ babies when there are so many orphaned or abandoned children who need love, attention, time, and care.”

In her memoir, Judd wrote that resources and energy should be channeled into making sure no child is “born into poverty and abuse again.”

We close our list with another environmentalist. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is known for his eco-activism, and like Miley Cyrus, doesn’t want to bring kids into the world.

The star has said, “Do you mean do I want to bring children into a world like this? If it happens, it happens. I’d prefer not to get into specifics about it, just because then it becomes something that is misquoted.” The actor has been in a relationship with Argentine-American model and actress Camila Morrone since 2017.