Yahoo Lifestyle Octomom Natalie ‘Nadya’ Suleman Reveals ‘I’ve Been Celibate for 25 Years’ as She Opens Up About Asexuality (Exclusive)
The mother of 14, who gave birth to the world's first surviving octuplets, gets candid about life as an asexual woman and why she has never desired a romantic partnership
The love Natalie 'Nadya' Suleman has for her many children is the only kind of love she's ever been interested in.
The mother of 14, best known by the nickname "Octomom" due to her having famously birthed the world's first surviving octuplets back in 2009, is back in the spotlight thanks to Lifetime's upcoming new biopic I Was Octomom, premiering March 8, and accompanying docuseries Confessions of Octomom, premiering March 10.
Opening up to PEOPLE this week, she says she is ready to finally tell her full, unique and deeply personal story. "There were so many misconceptions, so many untruths," says Suleman, 49, of the difficult years she spent in the public eye after welcoming the octuplets.
Her story, of choosing to have the eight babies as a single mom of six others, while living with her parents and struggling financially, caused a media frenzy.
She admits she fed into the interest as a means of much-needed income. She collaborated with tabloid media on stories about her life and participated in an adult film. But now she says she's setting the record straight about everything, including her sexuality and why she chose life as a single mother in the first place.
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Natalie Suleman on 'The View'"I've always struggled with anxiety. And since I was very little, I've always been a very painfully shy introvert," she says. "I really didn't even give eye contact to anyone all my life until college. And I forced myself to. I was always in my own world, and a loner."
That said, Suleman, who received her bachelor's degree in child and adolescent behavior from Cal State Fullerton, always knew she wanted a big family. Only, she wanted one that didn't include a partner. "I've never really dated. I had one relationship and I was very up front with him and said, 'I'm really only interested in having a child,'" she says of an ex who appears in the docuseries.
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Natalie Suleman"Wonderful guy, very nice, funny, great guy. And he had feelings, but I didn't really reciprocate them," she adds. "But I was open with him. I was never hiding the fact that I just wanted a child and he tried to help me, but it didn't work out."
At the time, Suleman, who suffers from endometriosis, was a student who desperately wanted children. Suleman was once married to Marcos Gutierrez, a man she separated from in 2000 and officially divorced in 2006. But she says "It wasn't a real marriage. It's not even worth talking about."
As she explains it, "I was married, but on paper. He was just a donor and I only tried to pacify my very, very old-fashioned Middle Eastern family on my dad's side, where some of the marriages are still pre-arranged."
She continues, "My dad was like, 'Nadya, why don't you get married and do it the normal way?' The traditional way he meant. It certainly didn't work. So then I had to talk with my dad and say, this isn't who I am. I'm different. And he eventually accepted it."
Her first six children were conceived from a "platonic friend donor," she says. The octuplets "have a frozen anonymous donor."
AP Photo/Antelope Valley Press, Ron Siddle
Nadya Suleman, rear center, poses with some of her children at their new home in Palmdale, Calif. From left, back row, are Makai, Noah, Suleman, Nariyah, on her lap and Isaiah; from left front, Jonah, Josiah, Maliyah and JeremiahRelated: See Photos of 'Octomom' Nadya Suleman's Octuplets Through the Years, from Babies to High Schoolers
When it comes to her own love life, it's non-existent and she likes it that way. "I've been celibate 25 years," she reveals. "That's actually something I'm really proud of. And for me, being a romantic asexual person, it just fits perfectly. I'm never going to change that. It's who I am as a person, down to the fabric of my soul."
She notes that when she participated in an adult film, she was solo. "I knew I could not touch another human being physically. That's where I drew the line."
In choosing to participate she says, "I did whatever I needed to do to make ends meet. And that was shaming myself, sacrificing my integrity. For years. I knew my limits, though."
Opening up about the details of her life now, Suleman says she's hoping to correct a false narrative. "This is our time to take our life back, to take our truth back and to share it authentically and honestly."
I Was Octomom premieres March 8 and Confessions of Octomom premieres March 10, both on Lifetime.
Read the original article on People
