Katey Sagal Reflects on Having a Baby at 52, Recalls Telling Husband Kurt Sutter She Had ‘About 5 Minutes Left’ to Have Kids

The actress went on to have her daughter Esmé at 52

NEED TO KNOW

• Katey Sagal welcomed her daughter Esmé at age 52 through surrogacy with husband Kurt Sutter

• Sagal’s older kids have questioned why she continues acting, but she says working is what she enjoys most
• The actress shares that her kids are proud of her career and are the first she calls with good news

Katey Sagal is opening up about welcoming her youngest child in her 50s.

The actress, 72, appeared on Ted Danson’s podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, and reflected on her experience welcoming her third baby, daughter Esmé, later in life.

“My husband is six years younger than I am,” said Sagal of her husband Kurt Sutter. “And when we met, he was like, ‘I don’t wanna have any kids.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, ‘cause I have about five minutes left if you wanna have kids.’”

Sagal went on to say that a few years after their conversation, Sutter changed his mind.

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“About five years in, we started really talking about it, and we did the whole surrogate process,” she remembered. “This is Esmé, my sweet Esmé, who’s 19. She’s my favorite right now. Kids, I love you all.”

Alongside Esmé, Sagal is mom to daughter Sarah Grace, 31, and son Jackson, 30, whom she shares with ex-husband Jack Cameron White.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Sagal said that her kids have been asking her why she is continuing to take acting jobs in this era of her career.

“Their only thing to me is, ‘Mom, you’ve been working for so many years, why don’t you just chill for a while?’ ” said Sagal. “I’m like, ‘You guys, I like to work. That is chill for me. I don’t like all the downtime. And I don’t really know what else I would do.’”

However, she went on to say that she likes to keep her kids in the loop when it comes to her career.

“They’re really proud,” said Sagal. “They’re the first ones I call when I get a good job.”

In March 2025, Sagal appeared on Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s MeSsy podcast and noted that her actor son Jackson is not a fan of people calling him a “nepo baby,” and he even went to lengths to distinguish himself from his mom.

“[Jackson] hates that whole ‘nepo baby’ thing. He didn’t lean into any of that,” Sagal said of her son, who stars in Tell Me Lies. “You know, he has a different last name than me, and a lot of people don’t know that he’s my kid, and he takes a lot of pride in that. As does Sarah, my daughter does as well.”