Why Hugh Grant Says He Waited Too Long To Have Kids

Hugh Grant took fans inside his relationship with his wife, Anna Elisabet Eberstein, in his November 18, 2024 interview with the "SmartLess" podcast. He and the show's hosts touched on the pair's family household, which never has a dull moment thanks to Grant being the father of five kids — all of whom were born after he celebrated his 50th birthday. He shares two daughters and a son with his current partner. Grant also has another daughter and son with his ex Tinglan Hong, who was previously a part of Grant's messy love life.

Although Grant's kids have lit up his life with a lot of joy, he admitted that it might be more challenging raising kids now than it would have been in his younger years. "I had them much too old in life — I started when I was 52," Grant said. "Now I'm 64, and the youngest is 6, and I need a long stint in a sanatorium or an abbey." At the same time, however, he credited his kids for making him a much deeper human being. "I think I was a dried-up, middle-aged, golf-addicted Englishman. Then I had children, and suddenly I had heart, and I think I had more layers or something," he added.

It seems Hugh Grant first toyed around with the idea of having kids back in the late 2000s. In a 2009 interview with Parade, he confided that seeing some of his relatives having kids was making him sentimental. "Ten years ago, I wouldn't have thought about having children at all. But now I have so many nephews and nieces and cousins and godchildren, I like the thought," Grant said. However, he joked that he was only interested in being a parent if he didn't have to be a father full-time. "But that's on the basis that I can leave after 10 minutes. I don't know what it would be like 24 hours a day. I think I'd have a lot of nannies."

Nowadays, Grant still has enough energy to spend much more than 10 minutes with his kids even at his more advanced age. He's even used his star power to help himself and one of his daughters attend a Taylor Swift concert, where they both had a great time. But seeing him so involved in his children's lives shouldn't come as a surprise, as Grant was confident that he'd be a good father to his future kids — so much so that he and Tinglan Hong became parents to his first child, a daughter, in 2011, just two years after his Parade interview. 

Speaking with The Guardian (via HuffPost) in 2012, Grant admitted that his firstborn had already changed him from the moment he laid eyes on her. "I like my daughter very much. Fantastic. Has she changed my life? I'm not sure. Not yet. Not massively, no. But I'm absolutely thrilled to have had her, I really am. And I feel a better person," he said.