Claire Danes is opening up about the internalized stigma and shame she felt when she found out she was pregnant later in life.
“I was so old when that happened. I was 44,” Danes said on the November 17 episode of the “SmartLess” podcast while speaking to hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett about expecting her third child, admitting that she “didn’t think it was possible” to get pregnant at that age.
After Bateman, 56, commented that the pregnancy was a “blessing,” Danes agreed, though she admitted she felt a slew of conflicting emotions at the time.
“Well, it was actually really interesting because I did not foresee this at all. And it was weird. Suddenly I felt like a funny shame,” she explained. “I was naughty. I had been caught fornicating past the point I was meant to. No, it was weird, and it was like I found an edge that I hadn’t been quite conscious of.”
Bumping along! Claire Danes showed off her baby bump ahead of welcoming her third child with husband Hugh Dancy. The My So-Called Life alum, 43, was all smiles while out and about in New York City on Tuesday, March 7. Danes initially covered up with an oversized green coat to keep warm from the cold, […]
Danes added that she and husband Hugh Dancy’s oldest son, Cyrus, is 12 and will turn 13 in December, and their second, Rowan, is 7. As for the pair’s third child, a daughter whose name they have kept private, the actress said she is now 2 and “loves a tutu.”
Claire Danes third baby Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Netflix
People confirmed Danes and Dancy, 50, had welcomed their third child together in July 2023. The pair were first introduced in 2007 on the set of Evening, but Danes later admitted she wasn’t quick to begin a serious relationship right away.
“I was very recently single, and I had never been single before, so we were just friends for a while,” she told Marie Claire in a February 2017 interview. “[Hugh and I] met in Rhode Island when it was at its most audaciously beautiful, in the fall. And there was one day when we were bicycling by the water and it was sparkly and idyllic, and I just had this dumb epiphany, like, ‘I’m really just happy.’”
Dancy later admitted that he didn’t realize Danes initially considered him a short-lived fling.
Claire Danes third baby Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
“The first thing I should mention is that this is complete news to me, so I’m glad I can respond to it,” the Ella Enchanted star said during a May 2020 interview on The Michelle Collins Show. “I can only say that I’m really glad my wife chose to have a one-night stand with an inadequate lover. It could have gone either way, who knows?”
Danes and Dancy married in France in September 2009, eight months after he proposed. Cyrus was born three years later in 2012.
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In February 2013, Danes admitted to Elle she was happy that she waited to have kids until later in life, when she was more established and able to take the time she wanted and needed to focus on her family.
“I’ve always wanted to have kids, but I’m glad I didn’t until now. When I was thinking about [working and being a mother] originally, I was really nervous about it,” she explained. “I think I would make a lousy stay-at-home mom. It just wouldn’t suit me. I feel so fortunate in that I’ve had this arrow-straight focus that I wanted to act.”
Before locking things down with Dancy, Danes was in a relationship with Billy Crudup from 2003 to 2006. Dancy, for his part, was in a relationship with Anne Hathaway from 2002 to 2004.
