Kelly Brook has opened up about the difficulties of not having children.
The 45-year-old has previously talked about being “childless by choice”, saying that her and husband Jeremy Parisi enjoy living without the lifestyle restrictions that a family brings.
However, she has admitted that there are some downsides.
“The most difficult thing for me not having children over the last 20 years has been losing friends because your lives are so different,” she told Prima magazine.
“It’s sad in a way. I miss a lot of my old friends who have kids. To be honest, when I go for lunch and I’m watching them mother their children, I get a bit like, ‘I want the attention. You’re my friends.’ I don’t want to sit there watching people parent.”
The model, who recently participated in Celebrity Race Across the World, said that her previous experiences had affected her negatively.
“In my 20s and 30s, I had miscarriages and past relationships that took their toll on me, physically and emotionally,” she said. “It affected my life, my career and how I looked at myself; it made me feel like a bit of a failure. It made me judge my partners negatively, by how they responded to it. I never had a really positive experience with pregnancies and trying for children.”
Brook also shared how she handles people who ask her about her decision.
“I just got so sick of being asked about it,” she explained. “‘We’re not having children’ kind of closes off this conversation. I think people are shocked you can be that blunt about it, but that’s where we’re at. And we’re not saying that having children is a bad thing.
"Obviously, it’s not, but I don’t think I’m alone. A lot of women have reached out to me since I was on Loose Women talking about it and said, ‘I’m the same; thank you for talking about it and thank you for being honest about it.’”
Last year, Brook opened up about societal conditioning, wondering if her previous aspirations to have children had been influenced by societal pressures.
“I think it is a really brave thing to say as a woman,” she told The Times. “Sometimes I look back and wonder if it was ever what I really wanted? Maybe I was going along with it because it’s expected. Because that’s what everyone does.”
