If you follow celebrity news channels at all then you’re very aware of the fact that there’s been an influx of celebrity babies lately. Chrissy Teigen and John Legend are now parents of two, the Kardashian family added three to their family in 2018 alone, John Stamos finally moved out of “uncle” territory into “daddy” territory — the list goes on and on. It seems like everywhere you look there’s baby-on-the-way news.
But not every celebrity is so open about their impending bundle of joy. Some prefer to keep mum about it until a certain point in the pregnancy is reached, or, in some incredibly rare cases, until their little one is actually here. We’ve rounded up 16 of these ultra private celebrities who kept their babies a secret until after the birth. Prepare to be impressed at the lengths they went to in order to keep the secret!
16. Karla Souza and Marshall Trenkmann
Karla Souza is best known for her role as law student Laurel Castillo on How to Get Away with Murder. But in April of 2018, she revealed via Instagram that she’d added a new role to her resume: mom. She posted a cute, cuddly picture with her daughter simply captioning it “God blessed us.” Since her daughter’s arrival, Karla’s given us a few more glimpses of her little bundle of joy who has a shock of dark hair and a cute little button nose, but, conspicuously, not one picture of the stunning Mexican-American ever graced Instagram while she was pregnant. Impressive! She and hubby Marshall Trenkmann have been together since 2014.
15. Zoe Saldana and Marco Perego
Zoe Saldana and her Italian artist husband Marco Perego also used Instagram to introduce their third child, a baby boy named Zen, to the world. The gorgeous couple was already parents to twin sons Cy Aridio and Bowie Ezio, but kept fans in the dark about their second pregnancy. Maybe their secrecy wasn’t as much a choice as it was a task that never got checked off of their to-do list. I can’t imagine that between keeping the twins changed, fed and out of trouble there was much time to alert the media that they had another addition on the way.
14. Alexis Bledel and Vincent Kartheiser
Fans were shocked when Rory revealed her pregnancy to Lorelai in the final moments of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. In fact, Rory’s pregnancy was all social media and entertainment blogs could talk about for months. But in real life, Alexis Bledel kept her pregnancy with Mad Men husband, Vincent Kartheiser totally under wraps. Not one word about her expecting or the arrival of her baby boy was found on entertainment blogs until her co-star Scott Patterson accidentally revealed her news in a Glamour interview. The couple did confirm the news, but haven’t spoken about it since.
13. Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling
Eva Mendes and her partner Ryan Gosling are notoriously private, so it’s no surprise that they didn’t splash their baby news all over the tabloids. But what is surprising is that they managed to keep Eva’s pregnancy a secret not once, but twice. Their older daughter, Esmeralda Amada was born in 2014, and their younger girl, Amada Lee, came two years later in 2016. Both times, TMZ discovered birth certificates and posted them online — which pretty much summarizes all the information we have about these two little girls – and also seems like a pretty blatant invasion of privacy.
12. Tasha McCauley and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Know who else is really good at keeping a secret? Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He and wife, Tasha McCauley, welcomed a baby boy in 2015 to the surprise of fans and tabloids alike, as no one even knew the happy couple was pregnant. Now admittedly, it’s a little bit easier to hide a pregnancy as a dad (no telltale bump to keep under wraps), but when your star is as big as JGL’s, and the paparazzi hounds you and your crew every chance they get, it’s still an impressive feat. No further details have been released about mini Gordon-Levitt, not even a name or a precise birthdate, so it seems like the secrecy around his little life will continue. But just knowing he exists is enough for us.
11. Hilarie Burton and Jeffery Dean Morgan
Fans of Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill would probably be surprised to know that their favorite heart transplant patient, Denny Duquette, and one of Tree Hill’s most emo cheerleaders, Peyton Sawyer, are not only a couple but the lucky parents of an adorable baby boy. The two actors quietly began dating in 2009 and welcomed their son a year later, in 2010. They live their lives mostly under the radar, so fans shouldn’t expect to see too many pictures of their now eight-year-old, but we have to imagine that he’ll grow up to be quite the cutie! In spring 2018, the two welcomed yet another child – this time a girl – but dedicated fans knew that she was on the way for a few months prior to the birth this time.
10. Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman
Drew Barrymore is the proud mama of two daughters, Olive and Frankie, with ex-husband Will Kopelman. These days, pictures of the girls pepper Drew’s Instagram, but when the Santa Clarita Diet actress first became pregnant with her eldest, Olive, she stayed totally mum about the whole thing. Throughout her entire pregnancy, fans continuously speculated about whether or not she actually was expecting, but by staying out of the public eye and maintaining a low profile, Drew was able to get away with not confirming anything until she gave birth. The secrecy must have put quite a strain on her, though, because the second time around she was much more upfront about her pregnancy, confirming months in advance that Olive was indeed going to be getting a sibling.
9. Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer
Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer met on the set of True Blood and delighted fans when they got together in real life. In 2012, they delighted fans again when they revealed that Anna had given birth to a healthy set of twins. Having kept their entire pregnancy a secret, the post birth announcement came two months after the twins’ arrival. It took several more months for the famous couple to announce the names and genders of their two children, daughter Poppy and son Charlie, and, to this day, very few pictures of the tots have ever surfaced. It seems that they plan to keep much more than their pregnancy a secret.
8. Laura Linney and Marc Schauer
Laura Linney was 49 when she welcomed her son, Bennett Armistead, in 2014 with husband of five years Marc Shauer. The multi-talented actress kept her pregnancy under wraps for all nine months, but revealed later that her reasons for keeping secrets were deeper than most. It turns out, her age made her pregnancy a high-risk one and she wanted to ensure that everything was able to go as smoothly as possible. On an episode of Live with Kelly, Laura told the host “I was an older mother-to-be, and it had taken me a very long time to have a child. I wanted to make sure that my child actually arrived, and was safe and healthy…. So it was the right thing for me and my family.” Totally understandable!
7. Anna Kournikova and Enrique Iglesias
Former tennis star, Anna Kournikova and her long-time love, singer Enrique Iglesias welcomed their twins Nicholas and Lucy in December 2017 – without a single peep of their pending arrival beforehand! The arrival of the future athletes/musicians was a pleasant surprise, as there were no indications on either one of the pair’s social media accounts that the babies were on their way. The couple doesn’t make too many public appearances these days, which made Anna’s bump easier to keep under wraps, but it still stuns us that the attractive duo could have kept a secret this big from sources like TMZ for such a long length of time!
6. Lucy Liu
Charlie’s Angels beauty and Elementary brain Lucy Liu welcomed her son, Rockwell Lloyd, via gestational surrogate in August 2015. Liu is far from the first or only celebrity to choose the surrogacy route (Kim Kardashian, Tyra Banks, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jimmy Fallon have all used surrogates), but she is unique in the fact that she didn’t let anyone in on the news until Rockwell was safely in her arms. Since her son’s birth, Lucy has been a major voice in celebrating and advocating for the diversity in families, which is a movement we can totally get behind!
5. Viola Davis and Julius Tennon
Viola Davis’s star has risen at light speed thanks to truly impressive turns in The Help, Fences, How to Get Away with Murder and Suicide Squad. Well it turns out, winning a triple crown (an Emmy, Oscar and Tony award) isn’t the only thing she’s been focused on. Her co-star, Octavia Spencer revealed in a speech at a Women in Hollywood event that Viola, and her husband, Julius Tennon, had recently finalized the adoption of their daughter Genesis. Genesis is one lucky little lady — we can’t help but envy her growing up with such a strong, independent mother!
4. Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the most well-known soccer players in the world, only behind David Beckham – who married a Spice Girl for heaven’s sake. The Real Madrid player been slowly and steadily building his own home team, starting with his oldest, Cristiano Ronaldo Jr., who was born in 2010. Then in a surprise, and almost bizarre plot twist, in the summer of 2017 Ronaldo revealed that he had fathered twins via surrogate (which he had kept a complete secret from the American and Spanish media) and was expecting his first child with his girlfriend Georgiana Rodriguez. Talk about a full house! Three newborns must have kept this forward very busy.
3. Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban
The Big Little Lies actress was already a mom to three (daughter Isabella and son Connor came from her first marriage to Tom Cruise, and she welcomed daughter Sunday Rose with Keith Urban in 2008) when she announced that her fourth child, Faith Margaret, had joined the family in 2011. She’s never placed too much emphasis on keeping her children out of the spotlight, so it surprised a lot of people when the new parents made the public announcement. It turns out Faith was born via gestational carrier and Nicole and Keith simply wanted to keep things quiet to protect both their daughter and the carrier for as long as possible.
2. Donald Glover
Those of us who have been fans of Donald Glover since his days writing for 30 Rock and acting on Community were shocked to find out, via his 2017 Golden Globes acceptance speech, that he was a father! It turns out, he’s a father to not one, but two little sons. His oldest, Legend, was born in 2016 and his youngest joined the family in January of 2018. When he made the revelation, most fans didn’t even know that he was in a relationship (he’s since divulged that his partner’s name is Michelle and they’ve been dating for an unknown length of time), so the news was a total surprise. The pair seems not at all inclined to release any more information, or photographs, of their little ones, so we’ll have to be satisfied with the little bit of information we have for now.
1. Kylie Jenner & Travis Scott
Finally, the best-kept baby secret in all of Hollywood. Admittedly, pregnancy rumors were swirling for all of the months Kylie Jenner spent out of the spotlight, but not one single picture of a confirmed pregnant Jenner surfaced until the arrival of little Stormi Webster. Considering how visible and social media obsessed the Kardashian/Jenner clan is, it’s truly shocking that they managed to keep this baby secret under wraps for so long. It was totally atypical for the young celeb, but in a statement released to her fans she said “My pregnancy was [a journey] I chose not to do in front of the world. I knew for myself I needed to prepare for this role of a lifetime in the most positive stress-free and healthy way I knew how… I chose to do it this way for my little life and our happiness.” But have no fear, Kylie has since given us so many pictures and videos of her little one, that we can hardly remember a time where we didn’t know of her existence.