Maria Menounos reveals she cut ties with 'judgmental' friend who shamed her for having baby via surrogate
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Having a child should be a joyful occasion, however, Maria Menounos encountered some unexpected responses when she chose to conceive her child through surrogacy.
Menounos recently recalled on the 'Women in the Nude' podcast how her now-former friend shamed her for using a surrogate to have her daughter Athena with husband Keven Undergaro in June 2023.
View this post on Instagram
Maria Menounos cut ties with 'judgmental' friend who shamed her for using surrogate
During her appearance on the 'Women in the Nude' podcast, the 46-year-old former E! News correspondent revealed that she was once humiliated by a former acquaintance over her inability to conceive a child.
"They were friends. One of them worked for me for a while. This is somebody who was so sweet and I loved," Menounos told host Sasha Pieterse.
"She said to my husband, 'What do you mean she can't carry? That doesn't make any sense,'" she said.
"And he goes, 'Her neurosurgeon – the top neurosurgeon in the world — said she can't carry.' And she was like, 'I don't get it. It just doesn't make any sense,'" Menounos recalled.
Following her discovery of that exchange, Menounos decided to sever ties with that individual. "I was like, 'Oh I don't ever want to talk to you again,'" she said.
"It's one thing to be judged by outside people who don't know and don't get it. But you actually know me, and you know what we've gone through. For you to even say anything so judgmental is just crazy to me," she added.
Menounos and her husband, Keven Undergaro, welcomed their daughter Athena in June 2023, according to People.
Following the big announcement, Menounos gushed over the good news on 'Live with Kelly and Ryan', saying she's "so grateful" and "super excited" for her daughter's arrival.
"We've tried everything, literally everything. They tried to get me pregnant, that didn't work. Keven had a surgery, that didn't work... We did everything. But we got so lucky," Menounos said of her fertility journey.
Neurosurgeon advised Maria Menounos not to carry children due to brain tumor complications
The 'One Tree Hill' actress shared that her neurosurgeon recommended her against having children of her own due to problems following a brain tumor removal surgery in 2017.
However, she faced some unexpected reactions from friends when she initially disclosed that she had chosen to use a surrogate to start her parenthood journey.
While Menounos was getting ready to welcome her child, she received a diagnosis of stage-two pancreatic cancer, which made it a difficult moment for her, as per Daily Mail.
She was diagnosed with stage two pancreatic cancer after visiting a second hospital for a scan after the doctors initially ignored her bloating symptoms.
Menounos eventually had the 1.5-inch tumor surgically removed and has been in remission ever since.
After being married in 2017, Menounos and Undergaro had IVF treatments until medical professionals found that Maria had a brain tumor, which was successfully removed.
Menounos previously claimed to have headaches and blurred vision, but she dismissed these symptoms, especially since she was focusing all of her energy on taking care of her mother, who had stage 4 brain cancer, per Daily Mail.
Menounos claimed that she saw a physician at UCLA Medical Center in February 2017 and informed him that she believed she had an ear infection due to ear pain.
Menounos was found to have a meningioma, a tumor of the meninges, the tissue that envelops the brain and spinal cord. However, it is categorized as a brain tumor because it presses against cranial nerves.
Menounos claimed that she kept her diagnosis a secret from her parents until two days before her surgery because she did not want to burden them with it.
