Lucy Liu's Unique Journey to Single Motherhood: 'A Magical Experience'
Lucy Liu is beloved for the mix of grace and strength she brought to movies like Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill and shows like Ally McBeal and Elementary, and as one of the few Asian-American stars in the spotlight in the '90s and '00s, she's a true Hollywood trailblazer. Liu is also something of a trailblazer in her personal life, as she made the unconventional choice not to marry and instead become a single mom via surrogate.
Here's a look at Liu's love life and her decision to choose motherhood in her 40s.
In 2004, Liu was engaged to director and playwright Zach Helm, and she starred in his play Good Canary. They broke up later that year, and she then dated actor and screenwriter Will McCormack. Liu was also rumored to be dating George Clooney during his bachelor phase in the aughts. In 2014, she dated billionaire businessman Noam Gottesman.
Since then, Liu has kept her personal life private, and when asked why she never married in 2021, she gave a spot-on response, saying, 'I do what I want according to how I feel. I don't have to fall into a social norm of 'now you're going to get married.' No! Not because I'm rebelling against it. When it's right, it's going to be right. But I'm not going to do it for the sake of doing it. Marriage is not on my bucket list. I don't have a bucket list.'
In 2015, at age 46, Liu welcomed her son, Rockwell, who was born by a surrogate. When it came to choosing single motherhood, she said, 'I didn't have a plan. I just thought, 'I want to change the conversation a little bit.''
Liu was determined to raise her son in New York, and she chose not to read parenting books or stress over the decision to become a mom in her 40s, saying, 'I didn't mull it over too much. I didn't do a lot of research, I just pulled the trigger. I can think myself out of something easily; if I think too much I won't do it. It's better for me to feel something and just go for it."
Liu doesn't see single motherhood as a challenge. In fact, she said, 'I think maybe it's easier in some ways if you're a single mom. You don't have to deal with someone else's opinion. And honestly, the other parent can be a toddler more than the child.'
Liu has also shared some moving words about her son, saying, 'Having him know that this is home, and I'm home, is really a nice feeling,' and sharing an Instagram post with the caption, 'My son opens my eyes to the beauty of being present every day—nature in its purest form.'
As for why she chose to have her son delivered by a surrogate, Liu said, 'It just seemed like the right option for me because I was working and I didn't know when I was going to be able to stop. I decided that was probably the best solution for me, and it turned out to be great.'
Liu has called motherhood 'a magical experience,' and the actress is living proof that such magic doesn't have to follow the typical template.
Read on for more about celebrity parents!
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Gordon Ramsay's 6 Kids: Meet the Chef's Doting Family—From Police Officers to Podcasters
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Yahoo
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Beach Boys 'heartbroken' by Brian Wilson's death
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Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Working out without working hard
Every generation has its own version of the vibrating belt machine — the '50s-era contraption that promised to literally shake housewives into shape with minimal effort (and effect). This perpetual fitness obsession is why, on a recent Friday in June, I found myself strapped into the 2025 iteration: an electro-muscle stimulation suit. For 15 minutes, sporting an outfit that had me looking like a cross between Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill" and a Transformer, I lunged, squatted, and pressed around a compact, chic-ish space as the getup intermittently sent little electrical impulses through my body. At first, I cackled as the EMS suit gripped and vibrated me every few seconds as I attempted to move. By the end, I came to dread the waves — it felt like a shock collar people put on dogs to stop them from breaking out of the yard. Despite my discomfort, the premise of the whole thing was enticing: EMS suits supposedly give you the same results in 25 minutes as you would get from working out for four hours, at least according to the fitness studios that market them. The quest to work out without actually doing much work is eternal. We know that exercise has all sorts of benefits. It's good for our hearts, our muscles, our minds. It increases energy, helps us live longer, and prevents disease. In a society that glorifies fit bodies, exercise can help keep things aesthetically in check. The problem is that exercise isn't always the most fun endeavor, at least by many people's estimations. So we find ourselves looking for shortcuts to reap the muscular rewards for a fraction of the sweat equity. Companies are happy to oblige, offering up all sorts of quick fixes. Whether much of this works, fitness-wise, is doubtful, but psychologically, the ploys are effective. 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We want to believe that there's a magical product right around the corner that will grant us miraculous results with only a small bit of input on our part. "Both of these ideas are equally powerful in making American fitness culture so long-standing," she says. It's human nature to gravitate toward shortcuts. People may think of some of the quick-fix stuff as relics of the past, like the aforementioned vibrating belt machines marketed to women in the mid-20th century, when it was thought that exercise wasn't just unbecoming of women but potentially dangerous. There were also later developments that followed in the belt's wake, like the sauna suits of the 1970s and the ab belts of the '90s. These concepts persist, just in different formats. 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ACE has commissioned research institutions to test the claims of many of these low-effort, heavily marketed products, Bryant says, and for the most part, they've found many offer marginal benefit at best. And none are a substitute for a comprehensive, regular program of physical activity. "The science behind most of these products is weak, often anecdotal, and almost always overhyped," he says. The effects these products do have aren't particularly impressive. Take the example of electromagnetic body sculpting treatments, such as Emsculpt, which are supposed to tighten muscle and burn fat. One review of the literature on the practice found that patients' measurements decreased by 2.9 millimeters on average, or about a 10th of an inch. "That doesn't seem like very much," says Melanie Jay, the director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity. It doesn't give you the same benefits as exercise or losing weight and maintaining weight loss. In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for BTL Aesthetics, the maker of Emsculpt, sent along a pair of presentations from the company touting the product's ability to increase muscle strength, prevent muscle loss, and enhance flexibility. They also pushed back on the conclusions drawn by the 2022 literature review, arguing in part that its data largely encompasses the Emsculpt, not the newer Emsculpt Neo (though two of the studies the independent paper cites include the newer version as well). They put me in touch with two doctors to vouch for the device — Jonathan Schoeff, of Rocky Mountain Advanced Spine Access, and Eugene Lou, from Minivasive Orthopedics. Schoeff said that the Emsculpt is a powerful tool to "direct metabolic change" though he advises patients it's not a replacement for the gym. Lou said the device "absolutely can be" a replacement for exercise, citing the positive experience of two of his patients in rehab settings. Schoeff is a paid educational consultant for BTL and participated in research sponsored by the company. Lou is a paid speaker for the company. Leah Verebes, a physical therapist and assistant professor at Touro University, notes that studies and independent reviews indicate that the fat loss effects of Emsculpt are modest and often within the margin of error. "Overall, Emsculpt is best suited for functional wellness and rehabilitation, not significant weight loss or body contouring," she says. She had comparable thoughts on EMS suits, like the one I tried: they have some potential in the rehab world, but their fitness value outside that is more about getting the ball rolling on a behavioral shift. In other words, if the shocking suit gets me off the couch, fine, but otherwise, I can move on. Verebes is similarly agnostic on the Shake Weight, an as-seen-on-TV classic. It's better than nothing, and the shaking may recruit more muscles than a regular weight, but it's not a replacement for a regular strength routine. "I think you might look a little funny with the Shake Weight, but you know what? If it's getting somebody who normally would just sit on the couch and flex their elbow bringing the can to their mouth, at least they're doing something that's getting their body moving," she says. Coming into this story, I expected the people I talked to to do a real LOL when I mentioned various devices, but that's not entirely what happened. Many of them seemed supportive of the idea that if a wacky little accessory is a way to get people to start doing something, so be it. But people should be realistic about how effective said devices are and whether buying them will actually change their habits. "There's a motivational piece here for people who are ready to change their health," Zizzi says. In sports psychology, motivation driven by outside factors like a new gadget or some office competition often gets "pooh-poohed," he adds, but all motivation is useful. It's just that extrinsic motivation fades fast. He points to the example of fitness trackers — when people get them, they use them and may even increase their activity, but over time that use declines. The fitness graveyard is filled with fads of the past. Who among us hasn't bought a treadmill or a bike or an ab roller, thinking, "This will finally be the thing that gets me to work out," only for it to sit in the corner and collect dust? People's starting points matter, too. Take the devices that let you pedal your legs while watching TV. "On a scale of fitness, it's a 1 out of 10 or a 2 out of 10," Zizzi says. "If you did that and you are diabetic and you don't get any other physical activity, that's probably better than telling somebody, 'Hey, you need to walk, walk 30 minutes a day, five days a week to meet guidelines, or it doesn't count.'" Of course, this isn't all just harmless. Some of these products may hurt people — the supermodel Linda Evangelista said she experienced rare but severe side effects after undergoing CoolSculpting, which is supposed to freeze away fat. Basically, all fitness-related contraptions come with some sort of disclosure or require you to sign something saying that if you get injured or die, it's on you. Jay, from NYU, says she's never recommended one of these treatment hacks to patients. "Maybe if they're trying to decide between a tummy tuck or one of these, I don't know. A tummy tuck is probably more effective, but of course, the risks and the downtime might be higher," she says. But that's not really the point. "The bigger point is that it doesn't give you the same benefits as exercise or losing weight and maintaining weight loss." If I decided I absolutely could not live without the EMS suit, it would probably be an OK addition to my normal workout routine. But I shouldn't try to get by on less than half an hour of exercise once a week. As Verebes said, these sorts of workouts might be better suited to particular applications. Bryant notes that EMS could be helpful for people recovering from an injury because "it helps to restore the connection between the nervous systems and the muscles." For a healthy person, however, the benefit is "going to be much less dramatic." Even the experts and their loved ones aren't immune to this stuff. Jay bought a vibrating platform, but she got really dizzy on it, so she gave it away. Mehlman Petrzela's son bought an ab belt he saw on TikTok. The modern narrative around fitness is that it's not just about being thin — it's about being strong, healthy, and fit at any weight. But underneath all that is an enduring truth: People want to look conventionally attractive. Those attitudes feed the tricks that have long plagued the fitness industry. People get duped by supplements that supposedly burn fat while they sleep and vests that claim to sculpt abs while they sit on the couch, not because they're actually trying to improve their fitness levels, but because they're looking for a shortcut to an aesthetic goal that's often unattainable. "There can be a lot of misinformation, a lot of gimmicks or gadgets or supplements where they make some promises and there is no evidence, no data, to support them," Bartfield says. Social media doesn't help the situation. It places unrealistic aesthetic expectations in front of us all the time — and lets companies sell us endless ways to attempt to achieve them in 10- or 15-second video bites. My Instagram knows that I'm fitness-curious and weight-conscious; it's filled with ads for weight-loss drugs and quick-fix fitness gear. I regularly exchange various hacky fitness ads with friends. The (very skinny) elephant in the room here is the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Exercise can be arduous and hard. Going to the gym often isn't an instantly gratifying activity. Beyond the overarching purpose that is long-term health, you don't really noticeably accomplish anything with a single run on the treadmill or one set of squats. It's natural that people would rather skip to the fun part of nailing that summer body without sweating it out in a spin class on a frigid day in March. "People are wired for these fast, easy solutions, and your brain naturally goes toward the area of least resistance," Verebes says. The (very skinny) elephant in the room here is the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy (which is the same as Ozempic) and Zepbound (Mounjaro) that really do seem to deliver miracles. They help people with obesity lose weight and, as long as they keep taking the drugs, keep it off. For many people, these drugs can make a real change to their lives. These pretty miraculous drugs may have people looking for miracles elsewhere, which obesity doctors and fitness trainers warn against. GLP-1s need to be accompanied by healthier diets and exercise routines, especially since they can lead to muscle loss. Being thin is not synonymous with being in great shape. "We certainly do not want people to think that you can lose weight, and that equals health," Bartfield says. "There's the idea of nutritional quality, the idea of body composition, right? Maintaining muscle mass." In what would be shocking news to my younger self, I genuinely enjoy exercise. As a person who also likes to eat and drink a fair amount (a fact that would not be a surprise to younger me), I work out most days of the week as part of a perpetual balancing act. But I'm also not immune to the appeal of shortcuts. In my 20s, I tried to work while sitting on an exercise ball, but I had to stop because I couldn't stop myself from slightly bouncing up and down as I typed and making myself nauseous. A few years ago, at the advice of my mother, I spent a couple of thousand dollars on CoolSculpt, which, as far as I could tell, had little effect. I've gone farther down the GLP-1 "microdosing" research rabbit hole than I'd like to admit, though the price tag always scares me off. I don't want to work out with no work, but I'd like to work out with less work. Fitness isn't as easy as diet and exercise. It's also not something that people can hack their way into. To reap the benefits of exercise, you kind of have to exercise. That doesn't mean running a marathon, but it doesn't mean vibrating the fat cells away, either. The good news is that the simplest stuff is cheap or free — go for a walk, lift a weight, find an activity you like. The bad news is that it requires time and effort that a quick-fix mentality doesn't allow for. In the days after my little EMS suit adventure, I was a little sore, indicating the device probably did something. But I won't be going back. The price point was not within my budget — membership at the studio I went to was $225 a month, and you can do it only once a week, which means more than $50 a class. Plus, as mentioned, the intermittent shocking really was not for me. I'll be doing things the old-fashioned way, one weight and stride at a time, until an ad inevitably gets me once again, and I'm testing out the 2026 version of the vibrating belt.
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Bruce Springsteen's Berlin concert echoes with history and a stark warning
Springsteen has made increasingly pointed and contentious public statements in recent concerts. He peppered Wednesday's performance with mentions of the American democracy's system of checks and balances designed to ward against authoritarianism. His short speeches — referencing recent headlines about immigration raids, the freezing of federal funds for universities and measles outbreaks — came between songs that were also captioned in German on large screens beside the stage. The set was flanked by an American flag on one side and a German flag on the other. Still, the Boss remained hopeful: 'The America that I've sung to you about for the past 50 years of my life is real. And regardless of its many faults, it's a great country with great people. And we will survive this moment.' Advertisement But last month in Manchester, he denounced Trump's politics during a concert, calling him an 'unfit president' leading a 'rogue government' of people who have 'no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.' Advertisement Springsteen is no stranger to Berlin. In July 1988, he became one of the first Western musicians to perform in East Germany, performing to a roaring crowd of 160,000 East Germans yearning for American rock 'n' roll and the freedom it represented to the youth living under the crumbling communist regime. 'I'm not here for or against any government. I've come to play rock 'n' roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down,' Springsteen said in German at the time, before launching into a cover of Bob Dylan's 'Chimes of Freedom.' An Associated Press news story from that period says 'fireworks streaked through the sky' and hundreds of people in the audience waved handmade American flags as they sang along to 'Born in the USA.' The Berlin Wall fell the following year, and some experts credit the concert for its part in fueling the protest movement that brought the end of the Communist government. Almost four decades later, Springsteen issued a stark warning: 'The America that I love, the America that I've sung to you about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.' The rocker closed Wednesday's three-hour show with 'Chimes of Freedom.'
