Nadya Suleman is reflecting on the controversial actions she made days after welcoming eight babies.
In the Monday, March 10, episode of Lifetime’s Confessions of Octomom, Suleman, 49, looked back on her decision to sit down with NBC News journalist Ann Curry for her first sit-down interview.
“[The hospital] let me pick what interviewer so I opted [for] a news anchor and I didn’t know who she was. I never watched anything she did,” Suleman said. “So I picked Ann Curry. She was one of the only women. I thought I’d feel comfortable talking to a woman.”
When sitting down with Curry, 68, for an interview that would air on Today and Dateline in 2009, Suleman said she was stressed for a variety of reasons including the way she looked.
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“I felt horrible about myself,” she said. “I gained 150 pounds during the whole pregnancy so at that point, I was still about 100 pounds heavier than normal. … I had no idea what she was going to ask me. I had never done an interview before.”
As recapped in Confessions of Octomom, Curry asked questions many Americans wanted answered at the time. At one point, the journalist asked Suleman to respond to people who thought she was being “irresponsible and selfish” for having so many children. (Before welcoming octuplets, Suleman was already a mom to six kids.)
“I was foggy in my head. I really wasn’t lucid. I was also ripped open and I was on Vicodin for pain,” Suleman explained to Lifetime cameras. “Can you imagine being interrogated and interrogated while you have just given birth, all those hormones? You’re very, very depressed. You’re in a state of shock. I was not there.”
Suleman went on to claim she was in “survival mode” and not ready to take accountability for her actions.
“I felt under attack. I was under attack,” she said. “When a human is under attack psychologically, they’re not in the frame of mind to be transparent or honest. They are going to protect themselves and I utilized every coping mechanism.”
According to Sulman, who went on to appear on the Today show again for another chat with Curry in 2011, the hospital where she gave birth wanted to set up an interview to “set the record straight” about her journey. But for the Orange County, California, resident, she simply wanted to go home and see her kids.
“It’s a blur to me,” she said about the interview. “I just don’t even remember. I just know I was in constant defense.”
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Confessions of Octomom is a six-part documentary series that follows Suleman as she provides an intimate look at her history and her life today as a mom of 14.
With her octuplets turning 16 this January and her other six children ranging from 17 to 23 years old, Suleman has been out of the public eye for years. Now, she’s hoping to provide a side of her family many haven’t seen.
Confessions of Octomom airs on Lifetime Mondays at 10 p.m. ET.
