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Why Donna Mills Left Hollywood For Her Daughter: ‘I Had No Interest In [Leaving Her For Work]’

Why Donna Mills Left Hollywood for Her Daughter: ‘I Had No Interest In [Leaving Her For Work]’

By Movieguide® Contributor

KNOTS LANDING star Donna Mills opened up about her decision to step back from her Hollywood career to raise her adopted daughter Chloe. 

“I’d wanted to have children, but it wasn’t in the forefront of my mind,” Mills explained. “After I quit KNOTS [in 1989], I had my own company, and I made movies for television. But afterwards I said, ‘OK, I’ve done all this, now what?’”

She continued, “I’d noticed that I’d been feeling really jealous whenever I saw a little child running up to their mother and saying, ‘Mummy’, and I felt this discontent; this feeling that something was missing. I realized I just wanted to be a mum. I felt I really had something to give to a child.”

Mills adopted her daughter in 1994, and while she continued to act for the first few years of her life—“I could take Chloe on set with me”—the actress eventually decided to focus entirely on her daughter. 

“When she started school, I didn’t want to leave her for two months at a time just so I could go off and make a movie. I had no interest in that,” Mills said. 

For some actresses, it might have been a difficult decision to leave their Hollywood career, but Mills said it was a no-brainer. 

“To be honest, I didn’t care [about missing out on roles],” she shared. “I might have missed out on parts, but I never looked at shows and thought: ‘I should have done that.’”

Chloe is now 28 and works as a model and manager at Soho House, and she and her mother are still extremely close. 

Mills recently attended the 2023 Annual Movieguide® Awards, which you can watch on UPtv on Feb. 26 at 9 p.m. EST and 6 p.m. PST.

Movieguide® previously reported on Mills’ decision to step back from acting to focus on being a mother:

KNOTS LANDING star Donna Mills recently shared how adopting her first child in her 50s changed her life. 

“I was very concentrated on my career, but at a certain point, I realized there was something missing — it was a child,” Mills explained. “So I went after it. I adopted her when she was 4 days old.”

She continued: “By that time, I was 54 and people said, ‘You’re going to be so old [to] have a little toddler running around.’ I never felt that. I never felt older than the other mothers who were probably in their 20s.” 

The actress spent her earlier years focused on her acting career, but once she adopted her daughter, Mills dropped everything to be a mother. 

“I took off 18 years. I didn’t work,” Mills said. “Well, the first couple of years, I did work. I did some movies for television and stuff like that, because I could take her wherever I went. But then when she started school, I wasn’t going to go out of town for two months at a time. And I didn’t become a mother to give her to a nanny.”

Mills’ daughter, Chloe, is now 27, and the mother and daughter are very close. 

“We see each other at least once a week and we talk every day or text,” the actress shared. 

Mills’ story of becoming a mother later in life and her devotion to her daughter shows that it is never too late to become a parent!


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