Bo Derek, 69, on Fame and Why She Never Had Kids

Bo Derek, 69, once assumed she would have children because that seemed like what people did.

The actor appeared on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast in an episode posted July 6, where the conversation moved from her breakout role in 1979’s 10 to beauty, aging, retirement, animals and why she never had children. 

Maher, 70, asked whether Derek had children.

“Nope,” she said.

Asked whether she had wanted them, Derek said she once assumed she would become a parent because that was the expected path.

“Everyone says you’re going to have kids. When I hit about 32, I thought, Uh-oh; I better start working on this and scheduling it.”

Derek was still married to her first husband, John Derek, who was nearly 30 years older than she was and had children from a previous marriage. 

“I kept waiting for my life to slow down. It never slowed down,” she said. “He didn’t want kids. He’d had two kids from a previous marriage. He was older, so he’d done it.”

The more she considered it, the clearer the decision became, Derek said.

“When I thought I wanted it, then I really started sitting down to scheduling and I thought, I’m not mother material,” Derek said. “My husband certainly isn’t father material. He was the most judgmental oddball.”

Derek said she weighed the decision carefully, even comparing the thought she put into parenthood with the thought she puts into bringing a dog into her life.

“I think I spend more time when I decide to have a dog, a new dog, than most people do when they have a kid,” she said.

Derek became famous at 22 in 10, a role that made her one of the defining screen images of the late 1970s. In 1980, she earned her only Golden Globe nomination, for new star of the year. She went on to make more than 40 films and TV shows, then moved much of her public life toward animal welfare, horse protection and conservation.

Maher told Derek that America had fixated on her after 10, making her “that girl” for a while.

“It was just a whirlwind because I had no aspirations to be in films,” said Derek.

Derek said she had no agent, no manager and “no fantasies about being in the movies” when 10 changed her life.

“So it came at me so fast and turned my life around,” she said. “I always felt I was kind of catching up.”

Now she is happily retired, she said to AARP.

“It took time to settle into retirement, even though I was hardly working,” Derek told AARP in 2024. “You still have that drive and that angst.”

Then, she said, something shifted: “It took a couple of years to think, Oh, I have worked hard, I am this old — and I’m really good at retirement. I am having a great time!”

Now married to actor John Corbett, 65 — best known for the Sex and the City series as well as the My Big Fat Greek Wedding movies — Derek told Maher she does not pine for a return to a movie set.

“No, I’m not missing anything,” she said. “I don’t miss it.”