Michelle Yeoh Felt "Like Such a Failure" for Not Being Able to Have Children
She got really vulnerable during a recent radio appearance.
Michelle Yeoh has opened up about the difficult experience of not being able to have children.
The Wicked actress just appeared on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, and revealed that she had undergone fertility treatment during her marriage to Dickson Poon between 1988 and 1992. Unfortunately, the two weren't able to have kids together.
"Every month, you feel like such a failure, and then you go, 'Why?'" Yeoh said on the radio show. "At some point, you stop blaming yourself and go, 'There are certain things in your body that [doesn'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 you."
The actress explained that she really wanted children, but that there came a point when she just had to accept that she wouldn't have them.
This, she said, was the "main factor that broke up my first marriage."
She has no regrets, though.
"But you also have to understand, these are conversations that you really have to have with yourself and be able to look ahead and think, '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.' And you have to be fair," Yeoh continued.
"That’s why this dialogue between a couple is so important. Like, if one wants [kids] and the other doesn’t, this is something you have to face right at the beginning, because along the way, there will be a lot of hurt.
"And so I think it was very brave on our path to admit, to say, 'Okay, let’s not drag this out, because that’s what we are doing.'"
Since her separation from Poon, Yeoh married her partner Jean Todt in 2023, to whom she was previously engaged for 19 years, as reported by Us Weekly.
Their relationship has come with an extra blessing: Todt's son Nicolas just had a baby this past January.
"I’m 62. Of course, I’m not going to have a baby right now, but the thing is we just had a grandchild," Yeoh said on the radio show. "Then you feel you’re still very, very blessed because you do have a baby in your life."
Yeoh stars in Wicked alongside Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey, and the movie will be released at last on Nov. 22.
