Allison Janney, 66, makes frank confession about never getting married or having kids: ‘It didn’t happen for me’

Allison Janney doesn’t regret never having kids.

The actress, 66, spoke about never being married or having children on the “Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky” podcast episode that dropped Tuesday. Janney admitted she’s thought about marriage, and revealed she went to a fertility specialist in her 40s.

“I always thought I would get married, just because at the time I was growing up, that’s what you did,” she noted.

But when she moved to New York to pursue her acting career, she said she had long-term boyfriends who, like her, didn’t want to have kids. However, when she was in a four-year relationship in her mid-30s, she said she thought it was the time to have children.

“And then it was apparent to me that this was not the man I wanted to have kids with,” she shared. “So I was like, ‘OK, well, I guess that didn’t happen.'”

But Janney said she was relieved.

“The way you feel in a relationship that you know is probably not the one and you’re kind of in it and you don’t know how to get out of it — that’s the most lonely feeling in the world to be with someone and feel alone,” she reflected. “Oh my God, that’s awful. So, it didn’t happen for me.'”

“I knew I never wanted to have kids,” she continued. “That’s just something that I’ve always known.”

Still, she said that in her 40s she felt that she should “just try” and visited a fertility doctor, and was bluntly told that her chances of getting pregnant weren’t great.

“The first I heard that I wouldn’t be able to have a kid at 40-something was in this fertility doctor’s office. She was like, “The odds are not in your favor,'” she recalled, admitting that she thought women could easily have kids in their 50s.

“And she said, ‘Also, where is your partner?’ And the guy that I was with, he didn’t even come with me and I was like, ‘I guess that is a sign, isn’t it?'”

Janney said that her “true love” in her life besides her friends and family are her dogs.

“Animals, especially dogs, are my heart,” she said. “I could not love dogs more.”

The “I, Tonya” star has kept her personal life relatively private. She dated actor Dennis Gagomiros from 1994 to 2001, and was previously engaged to her “Our Very Own” co-star Richard Jenik, but they broke off their two-year engagement in 2006.

She was most recently linked to production manager Philip Joncas, whom she met while filming 2013’s “The Way Way Back,” but they split in 2017 after five years together.

Janney said she was perfectly OK if marriage never happened for her during her appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show” back in April 2021.

“I really am this time in my life getting to know who I am and what I want,” she said. “I’d love to eventually find someone to share my life with, but if it doesn’t happen, I’ll be just fine.”

She also said of her decision to not have children, “I would rather regret not having kids than have kids and regret that. I’m OK with it.”