Michelle Yeoh Felt Like a “Failure” for Not Having Children, Says It Broke Her First Marriage

Michelle Yeoh said this week she “felt like a failure” for not being able to have children. The Wicked actress shared her perspective during a conversation about infertility.

“I think the worst moment to go through is every month you feel like such a failure,” she said during an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. “It wasn’t for lack of trying, because I have always, and still do, loved babies.”

The Everything Everywhere All at Once star clarified, “I believe that it’s a woman’s choice. It’s your choice whether you want to have children, and it shouldn’t be imposed on you… but I always wanted to have children.”

Yeoh said her infertility experience impacted her first marriage to Sir Dickson Poon. The couple wed in 1988 and divorced in 1992.

“When I was married the first time, that was very clear in our path, that this was a marriage about having children, next generation, and all that,” she said, and went on to say the eventual breakdown of the relationship was “heartbreaking” but necessary.

“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,” Yeoh said. “And you have to be fair sometimes, that’s why these dialogues between a couple is so important. If one wants [something] 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… so I think it was very brave on our path to admit, to say, ‘Okay, let’s not drag this out.’”

Poon is the father to five children; Yeoh is godmother to his eldest. Last year, she married Jean Todt, and recently became a grandmother to her stepson’s child.

“I’m 62. Of course I’m not going to have a baby right now, but the thing is we just had a grandchild,” she continued. “Then you feel you’re still very, very blessed because you do have a baby in your life.”

She added, “I think at some point you stop blaming yourself. I 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.”