Celebrities are normal people just like us. They go to the grocery store, they eat fast food and they have the same urge for privacy that all people do. While they may have huge mansions, luxury cars and make millions of dollar, their lives were always that way.
Many celebrities have given up a baby for adoption before they had the resources to care for their child. Giving up your baby is not an easy decision, nor one that should be taken lightly. Sometimes the child remains a secret of the past, while other times, the celebrity tries to make contact later in life.
Here's a list of celebrities you didn't know gave up a baby for adoption:
Kate Mulgrew
While you may recognize Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager or from her recent role as Red on the show, Orange is the New Black, she was not always a household name.
Katherine Kiernan Milgrew grew up in a large Irish Catholic family in Iowa.
When she was just 17, she left home to study acting at Stella Adler's Conservatory in New York City. Her first big role came during her junior year, so she quit school to portray Mary Ryan on the soap opera Ryan's Hope. Shortly after accepting this lead role, she found out she was pregnant.
The producers of the show, didn't want to lose the actress, so they wrote her pregnancy into the story line. With no support from family or the baby's father, Kate decided to give the baby up for adoption.
Shortly after giving her up for adoption with the church, she started looking for her baby.
"I instantly regretted giving her up. It was instant. I went immediately the first week. I begged," Mulgrew said.
The decision was not reversible, however. She moved on with her life. Married and had 2 sons, but she never gave up looking for her first born.
She had no luck until 1998 when Kate and her daughter got in contact. While on the set of Star Trek, she received a call from her daughter, Danielle Gaudette and then immediately flew out to see her. The two have been close ever since.
Joni Mitchell
A powerful and well-known singer, songwriter and record producer, Roberta Joan Anderson would become Joni Mitchell after she married her husband.
At 21, Joan Anderson was dirt poor and pregnant as an unknown folksinger in a Toronto rooming house. The baby girl was born February 19, 1965. The child's father, a Calgary artist named Brad MacMath disappeared to California leaving her alone.
Being pregnant out of wedlock was a huge scandal in the early 60's and she didn't want to ask her parents in Saskatchewan for help. Feeling it was her only choice, she gave up the baby for adoption.
At the age of 6 months, Kelly- renamed Kilauren Gibb was adopted by two teachers David and Ida Gibb in the Toronto suburb of Don Mills. She grew up in a world of private schools, country clubs, and tropical vacations. She later landed a career as a fashion model.
She says that her parents didn't tell her that she was adopted until she was 27 and pregnant with her own child. After that, she embarked on a 5 year quest to track down her birth mother.
The two were reunited in 1997 after Mitchell received a letter. They met a week later.
"(Gibb) had abandonment issues and she was pretty rough on me and conscripted my granddaughter, but we've worked through all of that. We reminisced about all the little tricks we pulled and the ways we can hurt each other. That's over. We're going to see each other soon," Mitchell said.
The mother-daughter reunion only lasted until 2001, when they had a fight and separated.
While many celebrities are known for adopting babies into their families, those who have given up babies in their youth, is much less talked about.
Not having the resources to care for themselves let alone a baby, made them feel like adoption was the best choice for everyone at the time.
Years later most children and their celebrity parents find each other in a joyful reunion.
Rod Stewart
Having sold over 100 million records worldwide, Rob Stewart is one the best-selling music artists of all time. The British rock singer-songwriter was born and raised in London, England.
When Stewart was still in his teens, his girlfriend became pregnant and gave birth in 1963. She tried to keep the baby, but without any help from Stewart, she eventually gave the baby up for adoption.
Stewart tried to make contact in the 80's when he discovered the link with his daughter Sarah Streeter. The connection was unsuccessful at the time because there were still a lot of hard feelings held against Stewart by his daughter and her birth mother, Susannah Boffey.
50 years after the adoption, Stewart and Streeter finally met, and have kept in touch. Sarah is the first of Stewart's 8 children.
Stewart has married 3 times and his children have 5 different mothers.
Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Barr is most well-known for her sitcom, Roseanne which ran for 9 season on ABC. Before her success on the prime-time show, she was a stand-up comedian doing odd jobs. After her appearance on Johnny Carson in 1962 she was thrust into stardom.
When Roseanne was just 17, she became pregnant with a little girl and decided to give her up for adoption. She admits that she initially wanted to keep the little girl, but she didn't think she would be able to provide for her since she was an unwed mother with no support.
"At first, [during pregnancy] I wanted to keep the baby. I got on welfare and rented a room for 50 bucks a month. I turned on the water, and cockroaches came out of the spigot. Outside, there were drunks. I just couldn't go on there, so I went away to Denver and moved into a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers," Roseanne said.
"I gave my baby up to the Jewish Family & Children's Service in Denver. They said they had a couple that had waited seven years for a Jewish baby. But the day they came to take my baby away, I whispered to her, "You remember this, I'll see you when you're 18." I always knew that. I always knew we would get back," she said.
18 years later, Roseanne and her daughter, Brandi Brown were reunited.
"I turned around and felt this powerful magnet. We looked at each other, Brandi jumped out of her seat, and we started running toward each other. We embraced and wouldn't let go of each other, hugging and crying. We went up in the elevator finally and had ourselves a reunion," she said.
Brandi even went on to work as a production assistant on the set of Roseanne.
Lucille Ball
You may remember Lucille Ball from her sitcom I Love Lucy. She was working as a model, comedian, and actress when she met Desi Arnaz. The 2 eloped in 1940 and in 1951 created one of the most loved sitcoms in television history.
Eventually Lucille and Desi divorced, and Ball went on to marry Gary Morton in 1960. In April 1989, Lucille Ball died from a ruptured aorta.
In 2014, a woman named Cassandria Carlson came forward claiming to be Lucille Ball's granddaughter.
Carlson's mother, Linda Jane Dee would have been born 4 years before the debut of I Love Lucy. Carlson claims that she has memories of a red-headed woman coming to visit her house and playing cards in her early childhood. She has been attempting to get DNA samples to prove her claims but relatives of the Ball-Arnaz family have rejected all requests.
What do you think of their decisions? Were you surprised to find any of these names on this list?
