Rose Byrne Shares Her 'Challenging' Entry To Motherhood: 'There Is A Grief Around Becoming A Mother'
Motherhood is beautiful, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. Rose Byrne knows this all too well, and she just got vulnerable about the “grief” she experienced when becoming a mother.
The If I Had Legs I’d Kick You star, who shares sons Rocco, 10, and Rafael, 8, with Bobby Cannavale, compared having motherhood to something out of this world in a January 31 interview with The Sunday Times. “Having a baby is like going to the moon, and nobody ever tells you that,” Byrne said.
Part of her difficult entry into motherhood came from breastfeeding. “I had a really hard time breastfeeding and found it very challenging, even more challenging than delivery,” she admitted, adding that she asked a friend why she didn’t tell her how hard it would be. “She was like, ‘I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want to scare you,’” Byrne recalled. “I was like, ‘Carla [Gallo, Byrne’s Platonic co-star]! Why didn’t you tell me?’”
Byrne also candidly admitted to the grief and loss she felt after welcoming her first baby. “But it’s hard for women to talk about. There’s a lot of shame,” she told the outlet. “You don’t want to feel like you don’t love your child, but there is a grief around becoming a mother, because you lose part of yourself that you will never, ever, ever, ever, ever get back. And that’s OK. It’s OK to grieve that — in fact, we should. Because it’s a before and an after.”
And she’s doing her best to spread awareness about the sometimes-difficult parts of motherhood. In a Nov. 2025 interview with Elle, the Bridesmaids star said she felt validated when her mom friends could relate to the struggling mom in If I Had Legs …, which was inspired by writer-director Mary Bronstein’s own experience caring for her sick daughter.
“One of my best friends saw it in L.A., and she was like, ‘I feel seen! I’m so invisible as a parent, as a mom, and I feel seen!’” Byrne told the outlet. She went on, “Mothers are both revered and ignored; there’s this duality. It’s so hard to chat about motherhood, because you feel if you’re anything but delighted, there’s a lot of shame around that.”
With moms like Byrne being open about the struggles of being a mom, hopefully, we can erase some of the shame. Because everyone feels it, everyone has bad days, and that doesn’t mean you love your kids any less.
Before you go, see what these celebrity moms had to say about their experiences with postpartum anxiety.