Jason Bateman has faced criticism for asking Charli XCX about having children in a new interview.
READ MORE: Charli XCX’s Partygirl live in London: celebrating the community and creators of ‘Brat’ summer
The ‘Brat’ pop star appeared on the Ozark actor’s SmartLess podcast – which he co-hosts alongside Sean Hayes and Will Arnett – to promote her new A24 mockumentary, The Moment.
Bateman told Charli that she “might find somebody” who could change her mind about her not wanting kids, despite her being married to The 1975 drummer George Daniel.
The actor, who has two children with wife Amanda Anka, asked Charli: “Would you love to have more than one kid or would you like to have a kid that has the same experience as you, the only child, and then you get to nurture and protect?”
She replied: “I actually don’t really want to have kids.” Co-host Hayes then asked: “You don’t? Wait, why? I know that’s none of my business…”
Hayes explained that he also does not want to have kids: “I want to want to have kids… I’ve said it a million times, but I’d rather regret not having kids then have them and regret it later. You never know what you’re going to get.”
Charli went on to say that her stance on becoming a mother “could change”, adding: “I love the fantasy of having a child like naming it – it sounds so fun – but I’m like, that is exactly assigned to me as to why I should not have one, the fact that [naming it] feels like the coolest part about it.”
Bateman put it to the artist that she might change her mind. “I mean, I guess I’m backing into giving myself a half-assed compliment here, but my wife did not want to have kids, so the story goes,” he said. “She said once we started going out, she thought, ‘OK, I think I can have a kid with this guy.’”
After drawing from his personal experience, he told Charli: “So you might find somebody.” She responded: “Well, I am married.”
Bateman then joked: “I got to read a newspaper one of these days. [With] your next husband, you’re gonna want kids.”
The actor has since faced backlash over his remarks. On Reddit, one listener wrote “Jason was just awful” in the “terrible episode”. Someone replied: “Yeah that was rough.” Another called the moment “fucking cringe”, and said the line of questioning around having children was “aggressively heteronormative”.
Charli XCX live at Glastonbury 2025. Credit: Derek Bremner for NME
“Why the fuck does society continue to pressure women, in particular, about having kids?!” another post read.
Someone else agreed: “This whole exchange about kids was so bad. Especially from Jason.” A separate comment read: “Jason is CRINGE when he talks about how he convinced his wife to have kids.”
Another user described the episode as a “complete mess”, adding: “Jason insinuating that Charli may change her mind about not wanting kids if she meets the right person only to find out she’s already married was abominably cringe.”
Elsewhere, a fan called Bateman’s comments “awkward and condescending”, writing: “God, they do NOT know how to talk to certain women […] We are more than vessels Jason.” Someone else claimed that the actor “has a way of belittling women”.
But some have defended Bateman, arguing that his lack of knowledge was in line with the podcast’s format. “The point of the podcast is that one host handpicks a guest with the other two not knowing who’ll they be interviewing,” a SmartLess fan said (via The Independent).
Another listener wrote: “Just listened to the episode and it does feel that a lot of the comments here are a bit dramatic today. If you are not a regular listener you may not know that the SmartLess name is quite literal. Outside of the guest ‘chooser’, the other two are going in blind.”
Charli wrestles with her feelings towards having children on the ‘Brat’ song ‘I Think About It All The Time’, detailing the worries of running out of time for motherhood: “So, we had a conversation on the way home / Should I stop my birth control? / ‘Cause my career feels so small / In the existential scheme of it all.”
The chorus goes: “I think about it all the time / That I might run out of time / But I finally met my baby / And a baby might be mine.”
Referring to the track in a four-star review of ‘Brat’, NME wrote: “It all paints a picture of who XCX is in 2024. Growing pains, grief and aching doubts come alongside self-confidence, celebration and the knowledge of the place XCX holds in the musical landscape.”
In other news, Charli has spoken about how ‘Brat’ brought her a new audience that didn’t always understand her.
At the premiere of The Moment last month, the singer said she was “really wanting ‘Brat’ to stop”, adding: “I think for all of us as artists, it’s like, you wanna challenge yourself, and you wanna totally switch the creative soup that you’re in and go and live in a different bowl for a while or whatever, you know?”
The Moment is due to arrive in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, February 20.
The post Jason Bateman criticised for asking Charli XCX about having children and telling her she “might find somebody” who changes her mind, despite being married appeared first on NME.
