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THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

‘Married...With Children’ Star Reveals Why She Had a Baby at 52

The sitcom star recalled warning her partner that her biological clock had “about five minutes left.”

Tamilore OshikanluContributor

PublishedAug 6, 2026, 3:42 PM EDT

UpdatedAug 6, 2026, 3:48 PM EDT

Updated Aug 6, 2026, 3:48 PM EDTPublished Aug 6, 2026, 3:42 PM EDT

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Actress Katey Sagal knew she couldn’t wait long for her new partner to decide whether he wanted children.

The 72-year-old Golden Globe winner revealed on Wednesday’s episode of the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast that she gave her now-husband, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, a blunt warning early in their relationship.

“My husband is 6 years younger than I am,” Sagal, who met Sutter at a 12-step recovery meeting in 2001, told host Ted Danson. “When we met, he was like, ‘I don’t want—I don’t want to have any kids.’ And I was like, ‘OK, because I have about five minutes left if you want to have kids.’”

The couple ultimately welcomed their daughter Esmé in 2007 through a surrogate when Sagal was 52.

At the time, Sutter was helping Sagal raise her two children, Sarah Grace and Jackson, whom she shared with her ex-husband, drummer Jack Cameron White.

Sarah Grace and Jackson are now 31 and 30, respectively. Their father died in July 2024 at 70.

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Sagal said she initially accepted Sutter’s answer. But five years into their relationship, the couple began reconsidering whether they wanted another child.

“We started really talking about it,” she said. “And so we did the whole surrogate process.”

Sagal, who starred opposite Ed O’Neill on Married...With Children for 10 years, joked that her youngest has temporarily claimed the top spot among her three children.

“My sweet Esmé, who’s 19, and just, you know, she’s my favorite right now,” she said, quickly adding, “Kids, I love you all. Right now.”

The couple’s conversation came during a narrow biological window. Fertility gradually declines around age 35 before dropping more rapidly around 37, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Sagal previously opened up about the less glamorous side of the journey during a 2024 appearance on the Broad Ideas podcast.

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She and Sutter explored both adoption and surrogacy, but found the adoption process difficult because Sagal was told she could not question a prospective birth mother about her health or habits.

“I just have a big mouth, and it was very difficult for me not to ask those kinds of questions,” she said.

Surrogacy ultimately felt like the better fit, particularly because Sutter had never had a biological child. Sagal said the couple had previously “frozen things,” allowing them to pursue the process years after their first conversation.

Gestational surrogacy is when another person carries and delivers a child for an intended parent or parents, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The carrier usually becomes pregnant through IVF and has no genetic connection to the baby.

Sagal said the process still required the couple to find an agency, select a surrogate, and build a relationship with the woman carrying their child.

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They attended her doctor appointments, checked on her prenatal vitamins, and sent a housekeeper to help her while her husband served in the military.

“I sort of started to feel like her mom,” Sagal admitted.

That closeness did not continue after Esmé’s birth. Sagal said she and Sutter decided it was best for their family to cut ties with the surrogate.

The delivery itself, however, gave Sagal an immediate connection to her daughter.

“Right as she popped out of the chute, she came right onto me and latched on,” she recalled. “I mean, it was really interesting.”

Sagal also attempted to nurse Esmé with a supplemental feeding tube and obtained donated breast milk for about two weeks.

The arrangement sometimes meant driving to a gas station in the middle of the night to collect it.

“It was like a drug deal or something,” Sagal joked. “It was crazy.”

Nearly two decades later, Sagal framed the decision to expand her family as a refusal to let age dictate which experiences were still available to her.

“We continue to live life,” she told Danson. “We don’t just fold up and die.”

Tamilore OshikanluContributor

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