When Celebrities Chose Adoption or Surrogacy and the Internet Lost Its Mind.

2 #  Lily Collins, Strength and Resilience Behind the Spotlight.

Lily Collins, the 36-year-old star of Emily in Paris, and her husband, director Charlie McDowell, welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Tove Jane McDowell, via surrogacy in February. Sharing the news, the couple wrote, “Welcome to the centre of our world, Tove Jane McDowell,” adding, “Words will never express our endless gratitude for our incredible surrogate and everyone who helped us along the way.” They also shared a photo of their daughter peacefully sleeping beside a blanket with her name, closing with, “We love you to the moon and back again.”

Almost immediately, the announcement sparked criticism online. Some questioned their decision to use surrogacy, with comments ranging from “We should ban this practice” to “They rented a woman’s body and bought a baby.” Charlie responded calmly to the backlash, emphasizing, “It’s OK to not know why someone might need a surrogate to have a child… and it’s OK to spend less time spewing hateful words into the world, especially about a beautiful baby girl who has brought a lot of love into people’s lives.”

Lily has not publicly addressed the criticism. However, her decision is rooted in personal health struggles she revealed in her 2017 memoir Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me. She shared that during her early twenties, a severe eating disorder caused her to stop menstruating for years, leaving her worried she might never be able to have children. “Between the starvation, the diet pills, the laxatives, and throwing up, I not only lost all of my energy, but my body started to shut down,” she wrote. “My period stopped for a couple of years, and I was terrified I had ruined my chances of having kids.”

Lily’s story highlights the challenges many women face with fertility and the deeply personal reasons some choose surrogacy, despite public judgment.