Elon Musk, Nick Cannon: Why Male Celebrities Are Having So Many Kids

Conventional wisdom (and by “conventional wisdom” I of course mean “sexist, heteronormative stereotype”) tends to hold that while women are a bunch of baby-crazed shrews desperate to trap a man into raising children with us, those men much prefer to spread their seed — subconsciously, anyway. In this context, “spread their seed” generally translates to “fuck around.” Yes, men want to unload their baby batter in as many partners as possible, but they don’t actually want to father your children or anyone else’s — or so women have been told for generations. A growing number of high-profile men, however, are busting that dated stereotype in the weirdest way possible: assuring the world, in no uncertain terms, that they very much do wish to sire children — ideally lots of them.

This trend has been brewing for at least the last year or so. In 2021, Nick Cannon made headlines for fathering four of his eight children with three different women in under one year. Back in December, Elon Musk, father of 10 , urged us to go forth and multiply, lest dwindling birth rates lead to the downfall of society.

More recently, the past two weeks seem to have brought an overwhelming wave of baby news from Hollywood dads. In addition to the revelation that Musk apparently welcomed twins with one of his executives back in November (just weeks before he and ex-partner Grimes had their second son by surrogate), this week brought news that Musk’s own father, Errol Musk, fathered a secret child of his own three years ago — with his stepdaughter. Meanwhile, Cannon just announced that it’s “safe to bet” he will be welcoming at least three more children this year, Pete Davidson gushed over his own plans for fatherhood, and news broke that Khloé Kardashian and Tristan Thompson are expecting their second child together, just months after Thompson welcomed son Theo with another woman.

Look, other people’s reproductive choices are really none of my business (funny how that works), and as long as all this baby-making happened consensually and the women involved were willing vehicles for this deluge of celebrity seed-spreading, then I guess there’s really no harm done. But, no offense to all you doting dads out there, fatherhood isn’t exactly a vibe right now. At a time when half this country’s population just lost their reproductive freedom, a bunch of men publicly flaunting their ungoverned fertility just kind of feels like… not a great look. Also, the apparent “repopulate the planet with my own genetic tribe” mentality of super-spawners like Musk and Cannon just feels a little weird, sorry! You’re not Genghis Khan; relax.