Diane Kruger explains how she ‘tried very hard’ to have a child with ex Joshua Jackson

Diane Kruger has spoken out about her family and how she wanted to have a baby with ex-boyfriend Joshua Jackson.

The actor reflected on her long term relationship with Jackson, whom she split from in 2016 after a decade of dating, during Wednesday’s episode of Caroline Stanbury’s Divorce Not Dead podcast. While she didn’t mention her ex by name, she did recall how she felt ready to have a child in her mid-thirties, which is when she was dating the Dawson’s Creek star.

“Maybe it is what people say about women and that time clock, just all of a sudden kicks in. I mean, the truth is I would’ve had a kid with or without a man attached,” she said. “I remember starting to feel like in my mid-thirties, like: ‘What am I doing all this for? Why am I running so hard, trying to make money and trying to live this life? What’s it all worth it?’”

She said that while she wanted to start a family with her ex prior to their break up, she later became open to the idea of having a child by herself.

“I was in a very serious relationship at the time, and we tried very hard to have a child, which didn’t work out,” she explained. “I was single, and I thought: ‘Oh, you know what? Maybe it’s just easier to do it on your own anyways.’ You don’t have to ask anyone for permission on schooling or where you’re gonna live. Let’s do it on your own.”

The Troy star said when she was “looking into that process” of having a baby herself, she was “casually dating” her now-partner, Norman Reedus. She and Reedus later came to the realisation that they wanted to have a baby “naturally” together.

She and Reedus welcomed their daughter, Nova, in 2018.

“I mean, Nova truly happened when I was least expecting it and most needed it in my life,” she explained. “She was the absolute best thing that’s ever happened to me, to us, to my life.”

This isn’t the first time that Kruger has opened up about having a child later in life. The actor, who notably had her daughter at the age of 42, said during an interview with the Sunday Telegraph in January 2022 that she was “so glad” that she didn’t have a child at the age of 30.

“I think I would have absolutely resented it for all the things that you have to give up, because today I am happy to do so,” the National Treasure star said. “I have been to every party, I have been to every country that I wanted to visit. So I’m 100 per cent ready and willing to give my kid that attention. But at 30, I know I would not have been ready to do this properly.”

She further described how her daughter was a “surprise” and that she didn’t think she’d have a child at her age, adding: “I sort of had given up on the idea of that happening. And then you know, things happen.”