Maria Menounos.
(Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images)Maria Menounos opens up about the time her friends shamed her decision to have a child via surrogate.
“They were friends. One of them worked for me for a while,” Menounos, 46, shared on Monday, Jan. 13, in an episode of “Naked women” podcast.
“This is someone who was, like, so sweet and I, like, loved,” she explained to the host Sasha Pieterse. “She said to my husband, ‘What do you mean she can’t carry? Like, that doesn’t make any sense.’”
“And he says, ‘Her neurosurgeon — the best neurosurgeon in the world — said she can’t carry.’ And she said, ‘I just don’t get it. It just doesn’t make sense.'”
Maria Menounos will never forget what it was like to hold her little girl in her arms for the first time. “It was the most special moment in my life,” exclusively recalls the 45-year-old star, who gave birth to daughter Athena Alexandra via surrogate on June 23 with her husband Keven Undergaro. “(…)
After that exchange, Menounos cut ties with her friend.
“I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t ever want to talk to you again,'” she recalled. “It’s one thing to be judged by people from the outside who don’t know and don’t understand. But you actually know me and you know what we’ve been through. It’s crazy for me to even say something so damning.”
Menounos and husband Keven Undergaro they had their daughter Athena Alexandra with the help of a surrogate in June 2023.
Former AND! News anchor faced infertility issues that led to IVF treatments, which were stopped when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2017. The tumor was removed and she is healthy, but a neurosurgeon advised her not to carry a child.
Before having their first child, Maria Menounos and husband Keven Undergaro formed an unwavering relationship with their surrogate mother. The couple spoke exclusively about their journey to parenthood in the new issue of Us Weekly, describing the “pure joy” they felt following the arrival of daughter Athena Alexandra in June. “It was the most special moment (…)
When Menounos and Undergar’s first surrogate failed in 2020, Menounos almost gave up hope — and then in February 2023, she happily announced that they had found another and were expecting a child.
“Athena is our miracle baby,” the “Heal Squad” podcast host said. Our after the birth of her daughter. “I’m so grateful for her.”
Menounos expanded Athena’s influence on her life in interview with Our last November, saying: “It was the greatest gift. I think the first thing I felt after she was born was that I finally knew where I belonged. And it was a really amazing feeling. I no longer felt like I was chasing anything. And she is just magical. And I just love every second of it. She has just brought so much joy to all of us and I am very grateful.”
As for whether he sees more children in their future, Menounos said Our that “it would be a dream”.
“We have already talked about wanting it. As soon as she was born, I said, ‘I want more, I need more,’ she said. “And then we said, ‘Well, let’s wait ’til she’s old enough to make that transition comfortable.’ So it doesn’t feel like a loss; it feels like a win and that she got a new role. So that’s what we think.”