Natalie ‘Nadya’ Suleman is taking a trip down memory lane.
The 49-year-old, known as “Octomom” after birthing the first surviving octuplets in 2009, reflected on an interview she did with Ann Curry, 68, shortly after the arrival of her eight babies.
“[The hospital] let me pick what interviewer so I opted [for] a news anchor and I didn’t know who she was. I never watched anything she did,” Suleman said on Monday’s episode of Lifetime’s “Confessions of Octomom.” “So I picked Ann Curry. She was one of the only woman. I thought I’d feel comfortable talking to a woman.”
The NBC News journalist’s interview with Suleman aired on “Today” and “Dateline” in 2009.
“I felt horrible about myself,” she recalled. “I gained 150 pounds during the whole pregnancy so at that point, I was still about 100 pounds heavier than normal… I had no idea what she was going to ask me. I had never done an interview before.”
At the time, Curry asked Suleman, who was already a mom to six kids before welcoming her octuplets, to respond to the rhetoric from the public that she was “irresponsible and selfish” for having so many children.
“I was foggy in my head. I really wasn’t lucid. I was also ripped open and I was on Vicodin for pain,” Suleman explained on the Lifetime show. “Can you imagine being interrogated and interrogated while you have just given birth, all those hormones? You’re very, very depressed. You’re in a state of shock. I was not there.”
She added that she was in “survival mode.”
“I felt under attack. I was under attack,” continued Suleman. “When a human is under attack psychologically, they’re not in the frame of mind to be transparent or honest. They are going to protect themselves and I utilized every coping mechanism.”
Suleman also revealed that the hospital where she gave birth had been the one to set up an interview for her to “set the record straight,” but all she wanted to do was go home and be with her kids.
“It’s a blur to me,” she recounted about the interview. “I just don’t even remember. I just know I was in constant defense.”
The Post reached out to Curry’s rep for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Suleman appeared on the “Today” show once more in 2011 for a second interview with Curry.
“Confessions of Octomom” is a six-part docuseries that gives viewers a look into Suleman’s story and life today as a mom to 14 children.
During a recent interview with People, the reality star shared that she runs a tight ship when it comes to parenting.
“I was a child and adolescent development major,” Suleman expressed. “With Elijah, then Amerah, and then Josh, and then Aidan, and then the twins, I kept going to school. So I was also raising them on campus with me, and I was earning my bachelor’s degree while taking 18 units in school and taking care of all my kids. I wasn’t like the media portrayed, this unemployed welfare recipient. It was not the case at all.”
Suleman added about her older kids, “I personally believe I failed as a parent to implement all of the knowledge I acquired in college.”
“I raised them just permissive, which is wrong. You shouldn’t do that. You should implement consistent structure, discipline and consequences, plus love, unconditional love and acceptance,” she admitted. “I only did the latter. I shouldn’t have spoiled them. I learned the hard way. But I still raised them to be kind and humble.”
However, when it came to the octuplets, who just turned 16, Suleman “was able to implement both a combination of unconditional love, positive regard and structured discipline consequences.”
“Confessions of Octomom” airs on Mondays at 10 p.m. on Lifetime.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
