‘I think at some point you stop blaming yourself’: Michelle Yeoh describes her pain at being unable to have children

Michelle Yeoh recently opened up about her struggles with infertility and the impact it had on her first marriage and perception of herself.

Yeoh has been enjoying a career resurgence in Hollywood. Since taking home an Oscar for her role in the critically acclaimed Everything Everywhere All At Once, she has tapped roles in major projects from Wicked to Star Trek: Section 31 to American Born Chinese. However, at one point in her life, Yeoh was prepared to leave acting behind to become a mother. While she found success early in Hollywood, she decided to retire in the early 1990s at age 28 after marrying Dickson Poon to pursue her dream of being a mother. Yeoh didn’t want to “multitask” with motherhood and a career, so she chose motherhood. Sadly, she soon realized she could not have children and eventually decided to return to the film industry. Her inability to have children is something she has been open about before, but recently, she went into further detail about her experiences.

Michelle Yeoh gets candid about her experiences

While speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Yeoh opened up about her experiences with infertility. In addressing motherhood, she emphasized that she believes “it’s a woman’s choice” whether to have children and that it “shouldn’t be imposed” on someone. In her case, though, she “always wanted to have children.” When she found out she couldn’t have children, it not only impacted her marriage but also led to struggles with guilt and self-blame. She explained, “When I was married the first time, that was very clear in our path, that this was a marriage about having children, next generation, and all that.”

Hence, she and her husband made the difficult choice to split because her infertility made them incompatible. Yeoh stated, “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 … so I think it was very brave on our path to admit, to say, ‘Okay, let’s not drag this out.'” There were further heartbreaking aspects of learning she couldn’t have children. She stated, “I think the worst moment to go through is every month you feel like such a failure. It wasn’t for lack of trying, because I have always, and still do, loved babies.” Over the years, though, she has learned to let go of the self-blame, explaining:

I think at some point, you stop blaming yourself. I go, ‘There are certain things in your body that don’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 yourself.

Today, Yeoh is the godmother to her first husband’s oldest child, and she recently became a grandmother to her stepchild. She stated, “Then you feel you’re still very, very blessed because you do have a baby in your life.”

Stories like Yeoh’s are very important to highlight, especially given today’s political climate. Recently, there has been a push from conservatives to normalize shaming women for not having children and fearmongering about the declining birth rate. The other day, Elon Musk posted to X that America needs to “teach fear of childlessness.” Conservatives think that they’re shaming and pressuring women who are perfectly content with their choice not to have children. In reality, they’re only further adding to the pain of women who already struggle not to blame themselves for being unable to have children. Stories like Yeoh’s prove that no one ever really knows the reason why someone might not have children and raise the question of why anyone would want to risk jeering at a woman with Yeoh’s story just to prove a political point.

Yeoh’s story also swiftly deconstructs the bizarre conservative argument that women without children are bitter and lonely. Although she could not have children, and it led to some heartbreaking moments, Yeoh still found a way to live an incredibly full and “blessed” life.