On Monday, Charli XCX appeared on SmartLess, the podcast hosted by Jason Bateman alongside Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, to promote her upcoming A24 film The Moment.
What should have been an upbeat promotional chat veered into uncomfortable territory when Bateman pressed Charli on whether she plans to have children.
After Charli mentioned growing up as an only child, Bateman asked whether she envisioned having more than one child, or whether she might want to recreate the only-child experience. The question seemed to assume parenthood as a given.
“I actually don’t really want to have kids,” Charli replied.
Hayes reacted with audible surprise, asking, “You don’t? Wait why?”
Charli expanded on her ambivalence, admitting that while she enjoys the fantasy of certain surface-level aspects of motherhood, such as naming a child, that instinct alone is precisely why she knows it is not for her.
“The fact that that feels like the coolest part about it,” she added, “maybe I’m not ready, you know?”
Bateman then suggested her position might change, citing his own relationship as precedent. He explained that his wife had not wanted children until they began dating. “So you might find somebody,” he added.
“Well, I’m married,” Charli replied, referring to her marriage to The 1975 drummer George Daniel.
Bateman laughed off the oversight, joking that she might want kids with her “next husband.”
The moment will hardly surprise anyone who has listened to Brat, particularly “I Think About It All The Time,” Charli’s candid meditation on ambivalence, autonomy and the cultural pressure to frame motherhood as destiny.
Lyrics from the song include:
“I think about it all the time. That I might run out of time”
“Would it give my life a new purpose?”
“Would it make me miss all my freedom?“
Clips of the exchange circulated quickly online, where listeners described the questioning as intrusive, dated and aggressively heteronormative.
While SmartLess operates on a surprise-guest format that limits preparation, many argued that research is beside the point. You do not need to be steeped in Charli XCX lore to know that interrogating a woman in her thirties about her reproductive plans is rarely neutral.
As one TikTok user put it: “I think she knows what she wants, Bateman.” Another echoed the sentiment: “Nothing like multiple men asking you why you don’t want kids.”
For those who have chosen not to have children, the direction of the conversation was hardly surprising. Many are well acquainted with invasive, faintly patronising questions from strangers who seem personally invested in other people’s reproductive timelines. Still, familiarity does not make the exchange any less dispiriting.
The moment reflects a broader cultural reflex, the assumption that parenthood is not only inevitable, but obligatory.
It is why Bateman leapt straight to how many children Charli planned to have, rather than whether she wanted any at all. It is why her answer was treated as provisional, something to be outgrown, negotiated, corrected. It is also why the imagined catalyst for that change was the arrival of the “right” man.
If a Grammy-winning, culture-shaping, powerful artist like Charli XCX is still expected to justify her autonomy in this way, it raises an uncomfortable question about how much latitude remains for everyone else.
