Sarah Jessica Parker sat down with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush earlier this week on the New Mexico set of her new comedy, “Did You Hear About The Morgans?” for her first interview since announcing that she and husband Matthew Broderick are expecting twins through a surrogate.
“I’m excited,” she told Billy about the babies. “I’m in disbelief. I’m really grateful. I feel really fortunate. My son is so excited, my husband is so excited.”
On April 28, just as stories were about to break with the news, the couple announced they were expecting twins via a surrogate. And on Tuesday, Sarah Jessica told Billy why she chose to go the surrogate route.
“Well, you know, we’ve been trying to expand our family for a number of years and we actually have explored a variety of ways of doing so,” she said. “This was one of the things we discussed with seriousness that had real possibilities for us.”
“A lot of people face disappointment in that area – [did you have your] fair share of disappointment?” Billy asked.
“Yeah, I mean I couldn’t pretend otherwise,” she said. “It would be a complicated – it would be odd to have made this choice if I was able to, you know, have successful pregnancies since my son’s birth.”
Thrilled over the fact that she was indeed having a child via surrogate, when Sarah Jessica learned she was having twins, her glee doubled.
“I mean, giggles!” she said of her reaction when first learning the news. “We didn’t expect it. I think after a certain amount of time, you tend to hold your hopes at bay a bit so as not to be disappointed. One really would have been thrilling and we would’ve felt incredibly lucky. And two was a comedy!”
Sarah Jessica said she has shared with her son, 6-year-old James Wilkie, some details about the surrogacy, but at first refrained from telling him too much.
“I’ve been pretty candid with him,” she said. “I kind of chartered my own course with him because we wanted to keep this quiet and so I wanted to be very careful about telling him so he wasn’t burdened with a secret. On the other hand, I wanted him to have time to adjust to the idea of sharing his mama and his papa.”
And now that he has, Sarah Jessica said James is ready to be a big brother.
“I feel very excited about the fact that my son is of an age now where he really will be helpful,” she said. “He’s really excited. He’s very much ready to be an older brother. I think it gives him a great sense of pride. It’s wonderful and I just hope for their safe arrival.”
Safety is, in fact, Sarah Jessica’s main concern. Since the baby news broke, she’s been shocked that a tabloid has targeted her surrogate.
“What has happened to her?” Billy asked.
“What hasn’t happened?” Sarah Jessica replied.
Not only has the woman carrying the twins been identified, but she has been followed, something that is troubling for the star.
“I am incredibly outraged by the sort of extraordinary and unprecedented invasion of her privacy,” Sarah Jessica said.
“The most unsavory things have been done,” she continued. “She’s had her phone hacked, her personal computer information hacked, she’s had threats against her and true harassment… She’s had friends threatened and family threatened and she’s had family of friends threatened.”
A pregnant friend of the surrogate was also chased by the paparazzi, Sarah Jessica claims.
“She’s had a friend who was thought to be her chased down a highway… This friend is nine months pregnant — chased down a highway by photographers and dare I call them ‘reporters.’ I guess that’s how they identify themselves,” she said. “It’s crossed lines… Pretty much all the lines have been crossed.”
“Is she physically healthy and OK?” Billy asked of the surrogate.
“She is today, but she’s had a bad week in the very recent past… You understand what stress, worry and fear and being scared can do,” Sarah Jessica said. “She’s quite far along in this pregnancy and she’s carrying two children…. There’s simply no excuse for doing this to somebody. It’s not acceptable.”
And despite headlines like “SJP’s Surrogate Revealed! The Troubled Life of the Woman Having Her Twins,” that came out in Star magazine, Sarah Jessica said she is happy with the woman they chose to carry the twins.
“I’m beyond comfortable with who she is,” Sarah Jessica said. “We haven’t been reckless, we haven’t been cavalier. She hasn’t been reckless…. Every single allegation that I know has been suggested about her is absolutely slander, and libel.
“Obviously there are those that don’t care about her, or her health, or safety, or my children’s health and safety, and that they should go to term and not go into an early labor and, god forbid, suffer all the things that can happen — that is a real possibly,” she added.
“It must keep you up at night,” Billy suggested.
“It keeps me up every night,” Sarah Jessica said. “It’s really incredibly upsetting to think of her so far away and me not being able to do something, beyond what I’m legally allowed to do.”
When contacted by Access Hollywood, Star magazine claims that much of the information from their stories was posted online – including on MySpace — by the surrogate herself. They additionally claim they contacted her for comment as is their normal practice.
“Star denies that it used any unfair tactics in getting information for the article about Sarah Jessica Parker’s surrogate,” the mag said in a statement to Access.
Watch Billy’s interview with Sarah Jessica on Access Tuesday, May 19 and Wednesday, May 20!
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