Celebrities Who Completely Changed After Having Kids

Having a kid changes a person, and we are not just talking about their ability to function on limited sleep (by necessity) or their swaddling and diaper-changing skills. Talk show host Jimmy Fallon once told People that, before kids, he never thought he would be the kind of parent who would show off pictures at the drop of a hat. But not only did he become that guy, he even turned into a person who wouldn't think twice about whipping up homemade baby food. And Fallon is not the only celebrity to admit to huge changes stemming from parenthood. For instance, Jennifer Lopez once said in People that motherhood made her appreciate her own mom and reflect upon the lessons she wanted to pass on to her kids.

For some celebrities, having children changed their careers — like Emily Blunt, who told The Telegraph she stopped doing nude scenes after she became a parent — whereas others have said it changed their values or self-image. For instance, Henry Golding told USA Today that becoming a parent taught him selflessness, a feeling that was echoed by Eva Longoria in a SheKnows interview. Per that same article, motherhood humbled Bryce Dallas Howard, gave Garcelle Beauvais more confidence, and taught Tamron Hall to be present. Here are 18 other celebrities who have divulged that they completely changed in one way or another after having a child.

Singer Pink became famous in her early 20s, with the release of her album "Can't Take Me Home" in 2000, and she has remained at the forefront of pop music in the decades since. Unlike some of the other early 2000s pop stars, Pink somehow managed to keep her personal life rather private even when paparazzi culture was at its peak. The thing that occasionally got Pink tabloid attention was her relationship with motocross racer Carey Hart, with whom she has been involved since 2001. The duo got married in 2006 and have separated a couple of times — once before the wedding and once after — but appear to be going strong more than a decade after their last separation.

Pink and Carey Hart have two children: daughter Willow Hart, born in 2011, and son Jameson Hart, born in 2016. The kids aren't exactly in the limelight. As Pink shared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2019, she even stopped posting their photos online due to negative comments. It is no surprise that Pink is a full-on mama bear, since she has always been a tough cookie. But one thing that has changed post-children is her sense of responsibility. "I did not know I was going to have a family. I didn't picture that for myself because I was terrified I would be a terrible mother," Pink told People in February 2023. "But, oh my God, being a mom is the most incredible thing I've ever done. It's shocking how responsible I've become."

There is not a lot that Anne Hathaway can't do, so we are not surprised that the actor appears to have taken to motherhood like a moth to a flame. She has also been very forthright with the struggles she has faced, including the fertility issues that she shared about on Instagram when pregnant with her second son in 2019. "There's this tendency to portray getting pregnant, having kids, in one light, as if it's all positive. But I know from my own experience it's so much more complicated than that," she said in a 2022 interview with WSJ Magazine.

Hathaway has two sons — Jonathan Shulman, born in 2016, and Jack Shulman, born in 2020 — with her husband, Adam Shulman. She has said that having kids changed her in a number of ways, but perhaps most interestingly by impacting her confidence. After having her first child, Hathaway found that her increased confidence helped her in an unlikely place: the gym. "I work out in West Hollywood, so you see, like, Thor's trainer — you know, the people who have too many muscles to be in 'The Avengers' ... so I would normally walk in and feel so intimidated," she said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" a couple of months after having Jonathan. "But [now] I walk in, I'm like, 'Yeah I work out with 5 lb. weights, but I pushed a baby out of my body, I feel good right now.'"

When it comes to his takes on parenthood, Ryan Reynolds never fails to have us cracking up. And articles like BuzzFeed's "28 Ryan Reynolds Tweets About Parenting That Will Make You Laugh Out Loud" and Life & Style's "Ryan Reynolds' Hilarious Quotes on Parenting Are Sure to Give Your Dad a Chuckle" prove that we are not alone there. Though he clearly finds not just hilarity but also much joy in being a father, the MCU star has said that he had to adapt his expectations as the father of all girls. "I have three daughters, which I never in a million years would have imagined," he told "Access" in 2020. "I come from all boys. I have three older brothers. I'm the youngest of four boys so for me to have three daughters has been such a ride and I love every second of it."

Ryan Reynolds and wife Blake Lively have three girls, named James (born in 2014), Inez (born in 2016), and Betty Reynolds (born in 2019) — which every Taylor Swift fan knows, since they are name-checked on a couple of her songs. They had a fourth child in early 2023 but have yet to disclose the child's sex or name, so we have no idea if Ryan and Lively have added a boy to the family. Regardless, Ryan has made it very clear he adores being a girl dad. "I'm 100% girl dad," he said on "Live with Kelly and Ryan" in 2021. "I love it. I absolutely love it."

Like Ryan Reynolds, Channing Tatum has found much value in having a daughter of his own. Channing is dad to Everly Tatum, whom he shares with ex-wife Jenna Dewan, and it is clear the two share a special bond. In fact, Channing has said that Everly helped him to become a bona fide feminist. "Only in having a daughter did it start to really scare me how scary the world is for women," he said in a Vanity Fair interview. "You can conceive it when you love someone that is a girl, but it doesn't land in the same way as having a tiny female human in the world that is so vulnerable and looking at the world through rose-colored glasses."

In that same article, Channing confessed that having his daughter forced him to work on himself — and also, that they are best friends. If that were not adorable enough, how about this: He has a whole line of children's books devoted to his daughter and their relationship. The books follow a girl named Sparkella and also involve her loving dad, mirroring Channing's reality. "I had talked about my experience with Evie at a certain point in my life and the book just came out. I don't think I really expected little moments I put in the book that were just me and Evie's moments, to be so resonant," he told People in 2022, upon the release of the third book in the series.

The Kardashian-Jenners are not exactly known for their focus on others so much as their focus on selfies, but Kim Kardashian has certainly changed that narrative in recent years (at least a tiny bit). Kardashian is studying to become a lawyer — she passed the "baby bar" in 2021, on her fourth attempt — and has become a vocal advocate for prison reform and clemency for non-violent offenders. She has spoken out about multiple cases, but her most influential work was in regard to Alice Marie Johnson, whose sentence was commuted (after decades in prison) after Kardashian met with then-President Donald Trump.

So, what changed for Kardashian that she suddenly became a criminal justice advocate? Her Paris robbery certainly played a factor, but it also appears that Kardashian's four children are to thank for her increased interest in social justice. "Having kids has changed my soul!!" Kardashian posted on her app in May 2018. "You learn so much about yourself from being a parent and you care more about the world you are raising your kids in." Kardashian — who is mom to North (born 2013), Saint (born 2015), Chicago (born 2018), and Psalm West (born 2019) — also started her law school journey in honor of her late father, lawyer Robert Kardashian. "I know my dad would be so proud and he would actually be so shocked to know that this is my path now but he would have been my best study partner," she said on Instagram.

Many parents will tell you that one of the greatest gifts of parenthood is the ability to see one's own parents in a different light. And celebrities are certainly not immune to this feeling — like Tom Brady, who once confessed to comparing his own parenting with that of his hero father on an episode of ESPN's "Man in the Arena." For Brad Pitt, it is not trying to live up to his own father that he worries about, but surpassing him, as he told GQ in 2017 that he strives to be a better dad than the one he had. Like Brady and Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch has spoken out about how having his own children has allowed him to see his parents in a new way — though unlike them, he does not seem to have internalized any sort of competition towards them.

Benedict Cumberbatch had one son with his wife Sophie Hunter when he was interviewed by Vanity Fair in 2016. In the interview, he discussed the birth of his son and how it had impacted his take on his own parents, as did his role in a production of "Hamlet" that occurred around the same period. "Having a baby—it's massive," he said. "And on a very unexpected level. Suddenly I understood my parents much more profoundly than I ever had before." He is now a dad of three boys — Christopher (born 2015), Hal (born 2017), and Finn Cumberbatch (born 2019) — which must certainly provide him with many moments for reflection.

Celebrities like Gwen Stefani and Misty Copeland have shared that they learned to be less self-involved after having children, finding ways to center their kids in their very busy lives. Reese Witherspoon said in Elle that it made her less competitive and Ben Affleck told "Access" that his kids helped him to prioritize the right things. To us, increased selflessness, decreased competitiveness, and a focus on the right things all boil down to one thing: maturity. And for actor Katherine Heigl, that has been the ultimate change that has come with parenthood. "I feel like I'm finally a legitimate grown-up," she told People in 2014.

Heigl and her husband Josh Kelley first became parents when they adopted their daughter Naleigh Kelley in 2009. They have since welcomed two more children, adopting daughter Adalaide Kelley in 2012 and giving birth to son Joshua Kelley Jr. in 2017. But even before their third kid, Heigl was seeing big changes in herself. "I have a deeper understanding about what really matters and whose opinion really matters," Heigl said in the aforementioned People article. "I'm not going to lie, I'm absolutely a neurotic actor...but I'm less atwitter, and I'm less defensive, and I'm less afraid of what everybody thinks about me."

To many of us, Beyoncé is as close to perfect as a human can get, so it is surprising to learn that Queen Bey has at times felt as uncomfortable in her own skin as the rest of us mere mortals. But Beyoncé has revealed that the birth of her first child, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, in 2012 did much to change her relationship with her body. This is a sentiment that has been echoed by other celebrity moms, like Amy Adams, who told Parade that she experienced more positive feelings about her body after giving birth and realizing her body's value was about its function and not aesthetics.

But back to Beyoncé, who has been open about the stresses of balancing work and home life as a mom of three. Upon first giving birth, Beyoncé felt a similar shift as Adams, in that she embraced her body in a new light. "Right now, after giving birth, I really understand the power of my body," she said in a Vogue interview in February 2013. "I just feel my body means something completely different. I feel a lot more confident about it. Even being heavier, thinner, whatever. I feel a lot more like a woman. More feminine, more sensual. And no shame." Given how she radiates confidence and sensuality in a way that is only possible with true self-love, it is safe to say that Beyoncé has maintained a healthy viewpoint about her body (or is an amazing actor).

Adele has a healthy sense of self, and we say that as a compliment. The superbly talented singer has never struggled with self-esteem, not even when being critiqued for not having the same size-zero build as some other pop stars. In fact, when Adele lost weight, it had nothing to do with image, as she discussed in an interview with British Vogue in 2021. "Working out, I would just feel better. It was never about losing weight, it was always about becoming strong and giving myself as much time every day without my phone," she said. "I got quite addicted to it. I work out two or three times a day."

Sure, Adele has some insecurities — she doesn't like her arms even after losing over 100 pounds, she told The Face — but really, confidence has not been Adele's struggle. And having a child in 2012 — her son Angelo Adkins, who she shares with ex-husband Simon Konecki — actually helped Adele to like herself even more than she already did. "He makes me so proud of myself, and he makes me like myself so much. And I've always liked myself. I've never not liked myself," she said in a Time cover piece. "I don't have hangups like that. But I'm so proud of myself that I made him in my belly. Cooked him in my belly and then he came out of me!" It is clear that being a mom is everything to Adele, as it should be.

For millions of people across the world, John Stamos is and will always be "Uncle Jesse," our favorite TV uncle, thanks to his role on "Full House" and the show's omnipresence in reruns. And for a very long time, it seemed like John's closest connection to children would be as an uncle (on TV and in reality), but life works in mysterious ways. In Hollywood, men have kids basically up until their Golden Years, so no one even blinked when John had his first child at age 54. John and his second wife, Caitlin McHugh, welcomed Billy Stamos in April 2018, two months after getting married.

It is a game-changer no matter how old you are when you have a kid, but we imagine it is even more revolutionary when you are in your 50s, having already established a set routine that has been around for decades. But the second John introduced Billy on Instagram, it was clear that everything was going to be about family going forward. So, it is no surprise that John has become one of those celebrity dads who gushes over his son in pretty much every interview. Immediately, John started talking about the ways his son changed his life — including making it brighter. "It's more beautiful than I imagined," he told ET shortly after his son's birth. "Everything is more colorful, more exciting. Music, you know, sounds better. He's just a beautiful little boy."

For a lot of people, having kids helps them to understand what is truly important in life and what is more of a temporary inconvenience. As actor Kiera Knightley once told The Telegraph, parenthood gives one perspective, which for her meant not stressing out about the small stuff. This has also been key for singer Kelly Rowland, who has expressed on a number of occasions that becoming a mother helped her to learn to chill out. "I am much more laid-back now," she told Parents in 2015. "Being a mom just makes me feel whole." In fact, she loves being a mom so much that she even wrote a children's book — centered on being the child of a busy working mom — entitled "Always with You, Always with Me."

Rowland has remained vocal about increasing her unflappability with child number two. "I thought I had no patience when I had my son Titan seven years ago," Rowland told SheKnows in 2022. "I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm definitely not going to have another one. All I have patience for is maybe one... until I just had this abundance of patience and I said, OK, it's time for another and I think I'm ready.' So I did. And now I've got even more patience." In addition to Titan Weatherspoon, who was born in 2014, Rowland and her husband, Tim Weatherspoon, have a second son, Noah Weatherspoon, who was born in January 2021.

Katy Perry gave birth to her first child, daughter Daisy Dove Bloom, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, back in August 2020. Perry's partner, actor Orlando Bloom, announced the birth with a sweet Instagram post, reposted from UNICEF (Perry and Orlando are UNICEF Ambassadors).

The pair have kept Daisy relatively private in the years since. There are paparazzi photos of her, but the child is very rarely featured on social media. Still, while Perry does not love to show her daughter's face to the public, she has no problem talking about being a mom and how much she loves it.

In a 2021 Variety interview, Perry expressed how much her life had changed in the year since having her daughter —everything from having to put someone else's needs before her own to learning to find balance. One of the biggest changes was, for Perry, learning what it meant to have unrestricted love for someone. "I never really truly knew about unconditional love. Obviously my mother has that for me, but I didn't really experience it in the first-person until I had my child. And that was just a whole 'nother level," she said. Perry is not the only celeb who has talked about unconditional love in relation to becoming a parent. For instance, actor Mila Kunis expressed similar sentiments on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2015, after the birth of her first child, and rapper Kendrick Lamar told W Magazine that his two kids taught him about unconditional love as well.

Anyone who has lasted in Hollywood as long as Salma Hayek has tenacity — that is just a fact. But Hayek has shown that she is especially strong, navigating an industry that is not always kind or fair (particularly when she started out in the 1990s) to women, especially women of color. Hayek has spoken many times about having to deal with stereotypes and negative experiences as a Latina, an immigrant, and someone with a noticeable accent. This all goes to say that Hayek is one tough cookie, and she has been for a long time.

Nonetheless, Hayek has said that becoming a mother made her even tougher. She made the disclosure in an "Extra" interview with her "Eternals" co-star Angelina Jolie, back in October 2021. The two actors got real about how parenthood had changed them, with Jolie saying her first kid made her shift from being a worrier to being the person who takes care of the worries of others. Hayek chimed in with how giving birth to daughter Valentina Paloma Pinault in 2007 made her accept vulnerability, which then led to toughness. "You will never be as vulnerable as you are when you have a child. Because of this, you have to be stronger than you have ever been," she explained.

He is not a Hollywood star, but Prince William is most certainly a celebrity. And with his brother's recent tell-all book, "Spare," and the details divulged within, Prince William's personality has never been under more scrutiny. Prince William is not known for his vibrant shows of emotion — in fact, nobody in the royal family is known for being especially connected to their feelings or being willing to display them. But the future king has admitted that having children has made him more emotional and less shut off to the world around him.

The current Prince and Princess of Wales have three children — Prince George (born 2013), Princess Charlotte (born 2015), and Prince Louis (born 2018). According to an interview he did for the British documentary "When Ant and Dec Met The Prince: 40 Years of the Prince's Trust," Prince William feels that the three kids have changed him for the better. "I'm a lot more emotional than I used to be," he said (via Hello). "I never used to get too wound up or worried about things. But now the smallest little things, you well up a little more, you get affected by the sort of things that happen around the world or whatever a lot more, I think, as a father."

Scarlett Johansson has been in the public eye since she was a child, and so fans have seen her mature and change right before their eyes. One of the biggest changes the actor has gone through is becoming a mom, which she did for the first time in August 2014. Her first child, daughter Rose Dorothy Dauriac, was born while Johansson was married to her second husband Romain Dauriac, while her second kid, son Cosmo Jost, was born in August 2021. Cosmo's father is "Saturday Night Live's" Colin Jost, Johansson's third husband, whom she married in 2020.

Johansson is notoriously private and does not even have an Instagram or Twitter account on which to share details about her personal life. Thankfully, she stars in a lot of movies and so we get plenty of information about her from press junkets and magazine interviews. Like in March 2022, when she chatted with Vanity Fair about all things motherhood. Johansson touched upon the scrutiny society puts on celebrities' pregnant bodies, as well as the way having kids is "life-changing." She also talked a lot about balance and learning to delegate tasks. "I'm used to having a lot of balls in the air, and I think I'm finally okay with letting other people help me keep the balls up," she said. "I haven't always been that way. I'm getting to a place in my life where I'm okay with letting other people in, with asking for help."

In the '00s, you couldn't escape pop-punk band Good Charlotte. The outfit's co-founders, twins Joel and Benji Madden, shot to fame around that time and continued to be increasingly popular with the release of their albums "The Young and the Hopeless" and "The Chronicles of Life and Death," both of which spawned multiple hit songs. GC has continued to make music since, but the band's popularity has dwindled as time has progressed. Still, both brothers are well-known names, thanks in part to their music and in part to their high-profile romances.

While Benji is married to actor Cameron Diaz, his brother Joel has been wed to reality star-turned-actor Nicole Richie since 2010. Richie and Joel have two kids — daughter Harlow was born in 2008, followed by her brother Sparrow the following year. For Joel, fatherhood has brought a whole new attitude about success. "What my kids and my wife did is to ground me. They give me a reason to be OK with myself. I don't feel the need to try and prove to the world that I'm anything at all, other than who I am to them," he told The National News in 2018. "When I was younger, I think I felt like I needed to constantly sell something. I needed that validation, and that's what my family gave me. It is the first time I've felt good enough."

Former "The Real" co-host Jeannie Mai Jenkins married rapper Jay Jenkins, better known as Jeezy, in March 2021. Less than a year later — in January 2022 — Jeannie announced on Instagram that they had welcomed a child. She did not disclose the kid's name or sex at the time, but has since shared not only those details (the child is a girl named Monaco Mai Jenkins) but also much about her motherhood journey. Monaco is a staple on Jeannie's Instagram account, and a frequent topic when she does interviews. She has also, according to Jeannie, been a life changer.

"Having Monaco made me feel like I've been born again. It sounds so overly spiritual and almost religious. But no, I just mean that, like, I see through different eyes," she told People in December 2022. She reaffirmed this when she spoke to SheKnows that same month, stating that having her daughter made her a more mindful person. "My daughter changes so much every day — today, she just started actually open-mouthed laughing where it's like this open mouth and it's like a little giggle. But it's not there yet," she said. "If I wasn't paying attention, I would miss that. And I wasn't present before; I'll be honest. I was way more in a rush." Like Mai, actor Amy Adams once said in Parade that she has learned to be more present because of her daughter.

Bradley Cooper is a major zaddy, yes, but he is also someone's actual daddy. That someone is daughter Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper, — whose full name we had to use because, well, look at it — the actor's only child. Lea was born in March 2017, when Bradley was partnered with her mother, model Irina Shayk. And though Shayk and Bradley are no longer together, they spend time as a family unit and Bradley remains a central part of his daughter's life. On numerous occasions, he has said that his entire world changed after becoming a dad.

On an April 2019 episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," he shared, "[Parenthood] allowed me to embrace his childlike self without any sort of fear or judgment." This is a similar comment to the ones he made on the "Smartless" podcast a few years later. "Everything changed...every single thing is absolutely shaded by, or brought into glorious colors, by the fact that I get to be a father to a wonderful human being," he said in the interview. "You have this wonderful thing or breakthrough with a script, or you have a wonderful moment on this set or in an editing room...you have like 40 of those moments every day with your kid, that are that level of joy. That's not spinning it, that's just the truth."