Supermarket tabloids have covered a lot of questionable celebrity moms, ranging from some tragic “Teen Mom” stars to Patricia Krencil, aka Tan Mom, who came to fame after being arrested for allegedly placing her 5-year daughter in a tanning booth, and went on to become one of the wackiest member of Howard Stern’s infamous Wack Pack.
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Then, of course, there’s Natalie Suleman, aka OctoMom, who earned that media-generated nickname after giving birth to octuplets. Since the 2009 arrival of that veritable litter of kids, the mother of 14 (she already had six) became a cultural oddity whose exploits where breathlessly recounted by the tabloid press.
At a certain point, though, a woman who became a ubiquitous pseudo-celebrity pulled back, deciding to exit the public eye. She stopped chasing the spotlight and kept under the radar for more than a decade before re-emerging in 2025 with a new agenda and teenage octuplets. While most people will certainly remember her, how much do we really know about this pop-culture phenomenon — or how she came to become who she is now? To find out more about her wild journey, buckle up and keep reading to experience the transformation of Natalie Suleman, aka OctoMom.
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Natalie Suleman was an only child, which later led her to became obsessed with having children
Natalie Suleman was born as Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman in 1975, the only child of California couple Angela Suleman and Edward Doud Suleman. As she recalled in an interview with NBC News, she was much closer to her father than her mother. “I was very unconditionally loved and accepted, I felt, by my father,” she said. “My mom, we had a relationship. I knew she loved me … She didn’t, openly or overtly, express, you know, affection and love.”
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Being an only child led to a lonely childhood. “I just would long for siblings,” Suleman said. “I wanted that huge family, just to surround me, be surrounded by.”
As she grew older, that desire reportedly transformed into outright an obsession. As Natalie’s mother, Angela, told the Associated Press (via CBS News), her daughter developed a compulsion to have children, wishing to have children when she was still a teenager, “but luckily she couldn’t.” Angela became so concerned that she consulted a psychiatrist. While that evaluation didn’t raise any red flags, Angela continued to worry about what she believed to be a growing obsession.
She was married for two years but divorced her husband when they weren’t able to have kids
Natalie Suleman was just 19 when she met Marcos Gutierrez, her college roommate’s cousin. Suleman and Gutierrez tied the knot in 1996, when she was 21, and she immediately embarked on a mission to start a family. Those efforts, however, proved fruitless. After experiencing three miscarriages, she discovered that her fallopian tubes were blocked. Doctors assured her the only way she’d be able to have children was via in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
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That revelation ultimately led Suleman to an epiphany about her marriage. “I thought at first that I loved him, but really I was more in love with having children,” she told the Daily Mail in 2009, revealing the marriage only lasted for about two years before they divorced. “We split up, but we are still friendly,” she added. Gutierrez later remarried and had children with his second wife. Interviewed by Us Weekly, he spoke fondly of his ex-wife, declaring, that she’s “not a bad person. She’s a great person with a great heart.”
She had six children in quick succession
After her divorce, Natalie Suleman didn’t waste any time in her quest to have children and began undergoing IVF treatments. “I went through about seven years of trying — through artificial insemination and through medication. And all of which was unsuccessful,” she told NBC News. “I had so many reproductive problems from fibroids. I have also had lesions in my fallopian tubes. It turned out that my tubes were scarred. So the only option left over was IVF.”
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IVF did the trick. Her first child, eldest son Elijah, was born in May 2001. He was followed by daughter Amerah, who arrived in July 2002 — just 14 months later. A second son, Joshua, was born in 2003, with a third, Aidan, born in 2005. In 2006, Suleman welcomed fraternal twins Calyssa and Caleb.
Suleman identified the sperm donor for her children as David Solomon, but also confirming that wasn’t necessarily his complete name. “We went out on one platonic date, but it never became anything because I realized he was young and liked dating lots of women, and I wasn’t interested in that,” Suleman told the Daily Mail in 2009, revealing that when she later approached him about donating sperm he agreed. At the time, she said that Solomon played no part in the lives of the children he fathered and had no interest in meeting them. “Maybe some day in the future he’ll be interested in seeing them, but it’s not my choice,” she said. “I can’t say whether he wants to play a part in their life.”
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She made history by giving birth to octopulets
While there have been various stars who have frozen their eggs due to pregnancy difficulties, Natalie Suleman’s numerous IVF treatments had left her with several fertilized embryos that she froze for future use. Wanting to have one more child, she enlisted the services of a fertility specialist, Dr. Michael Kamrava. Leaving nothing to chance, Kamrava implanted all six embryos (even though more than two at a time isn’t recommended). Suleman, however, was convinced that only two of those embryos could result in pregnancy. “But I knew there was a limited timeframe in which I could have children and I had just six [frozen and stored] embryos left and I was determined to use them all,” she told the Daily Mail. “I would have been very happy with just one more baby,” Suleman added.
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That, of course, didn’t happen. Instead, two of those six embryos split, with all eight growing to fruition. Upon discovering she was expecting octuplets, Suleman told the Mail she understood what she was facing. “With the six I have no problems,” she noted, “but I’m expecting 14 to be extremely challenging.”
At about 30 weeks, one of the babies had stopped growing. “Blood flow from the placenta to him had stopped. Completely stopped,” Suleman said during her NBC News interview. On January 26, 2009, all eight babies were delivered via C-section, a complicated procedure that needed to be completed with the utmost speed and precision. “They have everything prepared,” Suleman recalled. “And everything A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Color-coordinated. And they had different — respiratory therapists ready. And nurses ready. There was about maybe 46 or so.”
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Natalie Suleman became the infamous celebrity dubbed OctoMom
After the birth of her octuplets, Natalie Suleman became the single mother of 14 children and one of the most infamous people in America. While the birth of surviving octuplets was deemed to be a medical miracle, Suleman — dubbed OctoMom by the media — found herself on the receiving end of backlash from the public, hit with criticism of selfishly bringing children into the world that she had no hope of being able to afford. “I would have to wonder why, once she had six, she would need to have more,” psychoanalyst Ruth Jaffe told NBC News. “It’s a dangerous direction to go in.”
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For Suleman, her newfound fame proved to be uncharted territory, and she struggled with being both famous and widely despised. “In the beginning it was an unbelievable pandemonium,” she told People about entering the spotlight after the birth. “I was fighting for my survival.”
In desperate need of money to support her children, Suleman was pushed into a deal with the devil, forced to trade on her celebrity status to do things she wouldn’t have otherwise even considered. “I had to sacrifice my integrity repeatedly. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to provide for my family,” she told the magazine, adding, “I’ve never wanted fame.”
Her publicists quit after death threats and concerns about her mental stability
To field the requests for interviews and manage her public image, Natalie Suleman hired a publicist, Joann Killeen, of Los Angeles-based Killeen Furtney Group. Killeen navigated Suleman’s first major interview, with NBC’s “Today,” which may not have been among the most uncomfortable “Today” show interviews ever, but nevertheless attracted a lot of eyeballs.
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The firm’s representation of OctoMom, however, did not last long. After receiving about 100 threatening emails and voice messages, Killeen felt the need to quit. “They’d put me in the wood chipper and throw me in the bottom of the ocean and hope I die,” Killeen told NBC News, describing some of the more violent messages she received. “We’ve gotten her through the worst part of it and now they are putting their venom and anger toward us.”
Things did not go any better for Suleman’s subsequent publicist, Victor Munoz. He also quit, but offered a very different reason for his decision. “It just got to be too much,” he said in an interview with Us Weekly, offering a far less-generous assessment than his predecessor. “Nadya got real greedy. This woman is nuts,” he continued, adding, “This I can say: what ultimately destroyed the business arrangement was personal reasons.”
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The doctor who provided her IVF treatments was disgraced and had his license taken away
While Natalie Sulemon was coping with the life-changing situation of caring for eight infants and her other six kids under the harsh glare of the media spotlight, attention shifted to the physician responsible, Dr. Michael Kamrava. Kamrava was subsequently expelled from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which proved to be just the beginning of the problems he would experience due to Sulemon’s controversial pregnancy.
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In 2011, Kamrava’s license to practice medicine in the state of California was revoked due to negligence. “While the evidence did not establish [Kamrava] as a maverick or deviant physician, oblivious to standards of care in IVF practice, it certainly demonstrated that he did not exercise sound judgment in the transfer of 12 embryos to [Suleman],” the California Medical Board concluded, as reported by CBS News. He attempted to get his license back, blaming negative media attention; he was ultimately unsuccessful.
While Suleman continued to support Kamrava, she later came to wish that she hadn’t. “I kind of threw myself under the bus to cover for him,” she told People. “I definitely regret not suing him because his insurance would have been paying, and it would have been helpful. But I didn’t have the heart to. I wouldn’t have had any of my kids if it weren’t for him.”
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She became the object of widespread scorn
To keep herself and her 14 children afloat, Natalie Sulemon leaned into her celebrity as OctoMom, turning to the tabloids offering to pay her for stories. While an OctoMom reality show should have seemingly been a no-brainer, expectations that Suleman would become the next Kate Gosselin (shady as she may be), A&E and TLC — the networks that would predictably have jumped on that project — decided to take a pass. “What I suspect is that they don’t want to take a chance on her because she’s almost a little too crazy for reality television,” said Elayne Rapping, SUNY Buffalo professor of American studies and media studies, in an interview with the Associated Press. Any hopes of a career in reality TV were quashed later that year when a two-hour Fox special, “OctoMom: The Incredible Unseen Footage,” proved to be a ratings dud.
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Eventually, Suleman moved on to other ventures, including several celebrity boxing matches in 2011. Her opponents in these low-rent events ranged from a Philadelphia news anchor to infamous “Long Island Lolita” Amy Fisher.
Meanwhile, public outrage toward Suleman continued unabated. This led to a highly difficult period in her life. “I was on autopilot, just moving, moving, moving,” Suleman recalled in an interview with E! News. “And I was also living in a state of palpable anxiety and fear, all the death threats and then the stalkers.” Looking back at what she went through, Suleman doesn’t think she would have received the same level of outrage if her pregnancy with octuplets had occurred in 2025. “I don’t believe I would have been the target of such misplaced hate,” she said.
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She hit a rough patch financially and declared bankruptcy
Almost immediately after the birth of Natalie Suleman’s octuplets made her the mother of 14, questions began to arise about how she could ever possibly afford to take care of so many children. In December 2010, it was reported that she faced the threat of her and her children being evicted from their home due to being behind on a $450,000 payment.
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By 2012, her financial situation had grown even more dire. That May, she filed for bankruptcy, citing debts in excess of $1 million. “I have had to make some very difficult decisions this year, and filing Chapter 7 was one of them,” Suleman told The Orange County Register.
According to her bankruptcy filing, she reported just $50,000 in assets against a debt of 20 times that amount. Interviewed by HLN (via CBS News), she admitted that the staggering amount of money she owed was untenable. “I don’t think you can get farther, deeper down into the rock bottom than we are at this point,” she acknowledged. The case was ultimately tossed out of court when Suleman failed to file numerous documents and financial statements required by law.
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Natalie Suleman appeared in adult movies and went to rehab
A few months after Natalie Suleman declared bankruptcy, she ventured into an unexpected corner of show business with her first adult video, “Octomom Home Alone.” The video, released in July 2012, was a solo feature. While pornography wasn’t her initial endgame, she admitted that her difficult money problems forced her hand. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say generating revenue wasn’t a major reason why I did it, but I found the experience was empowering and liberating,” Suleman said in an interview with HuffPost. “This was a very different situation for me. I’ve been celibate for 13 years and avoiding my own sexuality.” That same month, she also made her debut as a stripper, dancing around a pole at a Miami gentleman’s club.
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She followed that up by taking a stab at a music career with the release of her first (and only) dance single, “Sexy Party.” She also endorsed a payday loan scheme, OctoLoan, offering interest rates of up to 800%.
Suleman capped off the year by checking into rehab, but not for substance abuse. Instead, she spent 28 days to deal with all the stress, exhaustion, and anxiety she was experiencing. In a subsequent appearance on “Oprah: Where Are They Now,” she admitted that all the pressure she was under had taken its toll. “I actually was starting to crack,” she recalled. “And then it got worse!”
She was charged with welfare fraud
Ever since entering the spotlight, Natalie Suleman has worn a lot of hats, ranging from reviled celebrity to adult film star to celebrity boxing contestant. In 2014, she added another entry to her resume: convicted criminal. In late 2013, ABC News reported she was under investigation for welfare fraud, due to claims she lied about her income in order to receive government assistance. According to Suleman’s rep, Gina Rodriguez, Suleman’s stint in rehab sucked up most of her savings, and she only intended to rely on “state assistance for a brief period of time.”
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In January 2014, she was officially charged, with prosecutors claiming that she filed for federal assistance the previous year, yet had neglected to report almost $30,000 in income she brought in from stripping and her adult video. If convicted, she faced serving more than five years in prison. An additional charge followed, claiming that she falsely received more than $10,000 in California state medical benefits because she lied in her application.
Suleman ultimately entered a plea of no contest. She managed to avoid jail time when the judge in the case sentenced her to two years’ probation, in addition to 200 hours of community service. She was also ordered to pay $26,000 in restitution.
She re-emerged in 2025 with a Lifetime docuseries and movie dramatizing her life
After narrowly avoiding jail, Natalie Suleman removed herself from the public eye. As she told The New York Times in 2018, she was then working as a counselor, having retreated from the limelight for the sake of her children. “We were struggling financially, but it was such a blessing to be able to be free from that,” she said of fleeing her own celebrity. “Those were chains.”
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In 2025, Suleman re-emerged to tell her own story — but this time on her terms. The result was the Suleman-sanctioned Lifetime movie, “I Was OctoMom: The Natalie Sulemon Story,” and a companion documentary series also broadcast on Lifetime, “Confessions of Octomom.” Speaking with People about why she went quiet, Suleman echoed what she told the Times all those years earlier. “The life I was leading was not only destructive, it was dark. It was the antithesis of who I am as a person,” she explained. According to Suleman, the worse that her financial struggles became, the more willing she was to compromise herself. “It was a very toxic time where I was sacrificing my integrity,” she added. “It took a toll and started eating away at my soul.”
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Meanwhile, it was clear that OctoMom’s kids were growing up fast. Interestingly, she credited her 16-year-old octuplets for her return to the limelight. “My whole family wants us to share our truth, to take our narrative back,” Suleman told ABC News, noting her kids had “been urging me, strongly encouraging me, you know, for years, to share my truth.”
