Hilary Swank: ‘There’s a lot of backlash to older women having children but not men’

Hilary Swank has addressed the “backlash” that older pregnant women receive after announcing she is expecting another baby at the age of 52.

The Oscar-winning actress is expecting the child with her husband, businessman Philip Schneider, in December.

The couple are also parents to three-year-old twins Aya and Ohm. Swank has said women face “a lot of backlash” for having children at an older age.

Speaking on the Drew Barrymore Show, Swank said: “There’s a lot of backlash women get for having children older but not men, which is interesting.”

Barrymore replied: “I mean, it is weird. Men have babies in their, like, 80s. That is not a euphemism or a joke.

“You had babies in your 40s and people weren’t always gracious about it.”

Swank replied: “There’s one story that I found really interesting and I think that I was attracted to this particular story because this one woman said, ‘How dare you, you’re too old and you won’t be old enough when your kids are older. My dad was my favourite person and he died when I was in my early 20s and it’s just devastation’.”

Swank said she related to this because her father, Stephen Swank, died in 2021.

She added: “He was one of my favourite people on Earth so I was drawn to that. “And I thought, myself, I would rather be born and have that person that was my favourite person and experience that than not at all. “So that’s how I took what she said.”

The actress announced her pregnancy on Instagram. She shared a neon stick animation of her family which showed her with a pregnant belly alongside her announcement.

She wrote on Instagram: “A lot of people have been asking what project I’m doing next, this one releases in December.”

Swank married her husband in 2018 after two years of dating.

She was married to actor Chad Lowe for nine years until 2006. She was also engaged to professional tennis player turned financial adviser Ruben Torres, but they split in 2016.

The actress has won two Academy Awards for Best Actress. The first was for Boys Don’t Cry in 2000, and the second for Million Dollar Baby in 2005.