As a child, life seems pretty straight-forward: have a successful career, meet the love of your life, get married and start a family. However, the latter isn’t always as easy for many women.
Whether it’s due to health reasons—or simply choosing to start a family later in life—our biology can have other ideas, making fertility feel impossible.
Because of this, a growing number of women are choosing to freeze their eggs in their twenties and thirties in the hope that they’ll have more once they’re ready to start a family.
As we know, infertility doesn’t discriminate. And many A-list celebrities have opened up to share why they’ve chosen to freeze their eggs, including why they also suggest that other women should take the leap to protect their future fertility.
Below, we’ve rounded up 12 celebrities who have shared why and when they chose to freeze their eggs.
Rebel Wilson
Discussing her procedure on the Kyle & Jackie O Show in 2019, Rebel Wilson told the hosts that a lot of her friends in Hollywood were undergoing the procedure. She admitted that she decided to take things into her own hands by visiting a fertility clinic, revealing: “I’ve just come from the fertility clinic, actually! ”
Asked why she was at the clinic, Wlison answered: “Because it’s a back-up plan. Career women should have options, you know?”
“A lot of women, especially in their 30s or if they can in their 40s, should think about doing it now. I know a lot of my friends here in Hollywood are doing it.”
On May 3, 2021, Wilson shared an update on her fertility journey revealing she’d received some “bad news.”
“I got some bad news today and didn’t have anyone to share it with… but I guess I gotta tell someone,” she wrote to Instagram. “To all the women out there struggling with fertility, I feel ya.”
She continued, “The universe works in mysterious ways and sometimes it all doesn’t make sense… but I hope there’s light about to shine through all the dark clouds.”
Paris Hilton
Olivia Munn
Speaking about her decision on the Anna Faris Is Unqualified podcast in 2016, Munn revealed that she “froze a bunch of eggs”, because when “I turned 35, you’re high risk,” she said.
“I think that every girl should do it. For one, you don’t have to race the clock any more. You don’t have to worry about it, worry about your job or anything. It’s there.”
She added, “It’s also just like, why not do it, because I see so many women who go through this. Doomsday is now like ‘whatever day’, because I am prepared.”
Sofia Vergara
The Modern Family star revealed to Good Morning America in 2013 that she froze her eggs hoping to have a baby with her then-fiance, Nicholas Loeb.
“I wanted to make sure I already froze my eggs. I wanted to take advantage of science,” she said. “I took them out already. They’re in the refrigerators. Hopefully, they’ll be fresh by the time I use them.”
Vergara also opened up about wanting to plan ahead because of her age. “Nothing happens that naturally anymore,” she said.
Kim Kardashian West
Kim Kardashian West has always been open about her struggles with her fertility, even before her first child, North, was born.
“A few years ago I was told I could never get pregnant,” Kardashian had told ELLE UK. “Three different doctors told me the same thing, which is why I wanted to have my eggs frozen.”
As she went to begin the process to freezing her eggs, she found that she was already pregnant with North. “I want a boy and another girl; I want it to start happening straightaway,” she said in the interview.
“I loved being part of a huge family–and I want that for North. We’d do IVF if nothing happens, but we both want to keep trying naturally.” However, after experiencing life-threatening pre-eclampsia during her pregnancy to her second child, Saint, she was no longer able to carry children.
Which meant that her last two children, Chicago and Psalm, were both conceived using IVF and a surrogate.
Rita Ora
Reportedly freezing her eggs in her early twenties, Rita Ora spoke of her decision to take part in the procedure, during an interview on Sunrise in 2019. She mentioned that her doctor recommended the procedure, as she’d always wanted a big family.
Although Ora froze in her twenties, unless a woman has a medical condition that might affect her fertility, most doctors advise freezing eggs until the early thirties.
Speaking on her procedure, Ora said: “He said, ‘You’re healthy now and it would be great; why not put them away and then you never have to worry about it again?’”
Halsey
Unfortunately, Halsey is no stranger to reproductive health challenges. After being open about her endometriosis diagnosis and having to endure a miscarriage on stage in front of hundreds of fans.
Opening up to The Doctors about freezing her eggs, Halsey spoke of how people always ask her “You’re 23, why do you need to do that? Why do you need to freeze your eggs?”
She went on to explain how ovarian reserve is important to her, because she is fortunate enough to have that as an option. Severe endometriosis and operations to treat it can impact fertility. “I need to be aggressive about protecting my fertility, about protecting myself.”
Chrissy Teigen
Speaking about her struggle to conceive on many occasions, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend’s two children, Luna and Miles, were conceived through IVF, using eggs that were frozen previously.
When Teigen fell pregnant with her son, she spoke to People about why she chose to freeze more eggs and the effect that the product had on her.
“You do the whole process again to try to get as many embryos and eggs as possible,” she explained about the process. “Everyone is freezing everything and then you make the embryos out of what you freeze and try to make viable, perfect embryos.”
However, Teigen also revealed that she doesn’t want to go through the process ever again, which is why she is choosing to gather as many eggs as possible in one go. “So it’d be nice to get a great batch of beautiful, perfect embryos and keep trying so we did it again,” she said.
And she didn’t have to. On August 13, Teigen confirmed that she is expecting her third child with Legend, which was conceived naturally.
Kourtney Kardashian
Despite already being a mother to three children with ex-partner Scott Disick, the reality show star decided to freeze her eggs in case she ever wanted more children.
“I just feel like this is for safety,” she says in an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. “I hope that going through all of this is worth it. I don’t want to put my body through something like this again. The emotions of it all are just a lot.”
“I’ve been so up and down emotional…It’s like crazy. I feel like I want to jump out of my skin. I’m so crazy, I can’t take it.”
She also shared her procedure on season 15 of the show, revealing doctors were able to freeze 7 good quality eggs out of the 8 she initially had retrieved.
“The injections themselves weren’t really a big deal because I have a really high pain tolerance. But I think everything was just really heightened. Some days I would feel so anxious. it’s just very emotional, so that I think is the hard part.”
Céline Dion
Céline Dion had her embryos frozen when she went through IVF treatment, while trying to conceive her first child, René-Charles, in 2000. After completing her performance run in Las Vegas in 2007, she consulted Dr. Rosenwaks about trying for her second child.
According to People, Dr.Rosenwaks spoke about Dion using an 8-year-old embryo to try and fall pregnant, saying: “She came back to have the embryos transferred back because she wanted to have another baby.”
According to the fertility specialist, freezing an embryo for eight years is not necessarily a problem. “There have been embryos that have been [frozen] for more than 10 years, and even more than 15 years, that have successfully thawed and resulted in a pregnancy,” he admits.
Her second pregnancy results in the birth of her twin sons Nelson and Eddy in 2010.
Amy Schumer
Just under a year after the birth of her first child with husband Chris Fisher, Amy Schumer opened up going through IVF to preserve some of her eggs. Sharing an image of her body post-procedure, she announced to her followers that she wants to give her son a sibling.
“I’m a week into IVF and feeling really run down and emotional,” Schumer wrote on Instagram.
“If anyone went through it and if you have any advice or wouldn’t mind sharing your experience with me please do. My number is in my bio. We are freezing my eggs and figuring out what to do to give Gene a sibling.”
Sophie Monk
“That’s why I recently had my eggs frozen. I’d like to start a family one day but you never know what’s around the corner, so I did it to prevent trouble down the track. I’m fortunate enough that I could afford to have it done.
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