Michelle Yeoh felt like “such a failure” for not having children.
The Oscar winner, 62, revealed on the Monday, November 18, episode of the U.K. BBC Radio 4 show Woman’s Hour that she always wanted to start a family and underwent fertility treatment during her marriage to her first husband, Dickson Poon. She said the marriage — which lasted from 1988 to 1992 — was in part “about having children, a next generation and all that.”
“And I think the worst moment to go through is every month you feel like such a failure,” the Wicked actress 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.’”
Yeoh added, “You just have to let go and move on. And I think you come to a point where you have to stop blaming you.”
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Yeoh said not having her own children was “honestly not for the lack of trying because I have always and still do love babies,” adding, “Sometimes, honestly, I still think about it.”
The Malaysia-born star opened up about the way not having children affected her marriage to Poon, saying that it was the “main factor that broke up” their union.
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“But you also have to understand, these are conversations that you really have to have with yourself and be able to look ahead and think, ‘Yes, we love each other very much now, but in 10 years or 20 years, I still can’t give him the family that he craves for.’ And you have to be fair,” Yeoh explained.
She continued, “That’s why this dialogue between a couple is so important. Like, if one wants [a baby] and the other doesn’t, this is something you have to face right at the beginning, because, along the way, there will be a lot of hurt and difficult times.”
“And so I think it was very brave on our path to admit, to say, ‘OK, let’s not drag this out, because that’s what we are doing. Because we tried,’” the Everything Everywhere All at Once star said.
Yeoh married her longtime partner, French motor racing executive Jean Todt, in July 2023 after a 19-year engagement.
Speaking on Woman’s Hour, Yeoh said she has found some satisfaction in becoming a grandmother through her marriage. Todt’s son from a previous marriage, Nicolas, welcomed a son, Maxime, with his wife Darina on January 1.
“I’m 62. Of course, I’m not going to have a baby right now, but the thing is we just had a grandchild,” shared the actress. “Then you feel you’re still very, very blessed because you do have a baby in your life.”
