ELLIE GONSALVES MY CHOICE TO MAKE
When model and actor Ellie Gonsalves posted her list of 117 reasons why she wanted to remain childfree, she wasn’t aware of the vitriol it would spark. She is proud of her decision, but says it takes courage to speak up on social media
As a model and actor with five million followers across Facebook and Instagram tuning in to her daily life, Ellie Gonsalves is used to feedback from strangers on the internet. And she has a thick skin – a byproduct of more than a decade in the modelling and acting industries in the US and Australia – so allows any negative judgment to simply bounce back to the sender before moving on with her day. That was until she shared her personal list of 117 reasons not to have children. She woke to a storm at 5am the following morning, a Monday in late November. Her list – featuring quips about preserving her various body parts – was spreading like wildfire around the world, and messages, from fans, critics and high-profile media outlets, rolled into her inbox on a tidal wave.
“I thought it was just going to stay in my little Instagram bubble, but it all started kicking off and it just went internationally viral,” Gonsalves, 33, recalls, speaking on the Gold Coast four months later, when her list is still trending in China and not too long ago inspired a comedy segment on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
Not wanting children is a statement that, despite being a personal choice, often prompts disbelief when uttered out loud, especially by a woman. And Gonsalves was met with the kind of responses she’s accustomed to, that she’d regret it or change her mind.
Many women thanked her for her unfiltered honesty and many others attacked her as vain, selfish, and even an “unfit mother” in personal and targeted messages.
She fielded countless interview requests and by the Monday night she was recounting her list on Channel 10’s The Project, propelled headfirst into a sensitive and divisive debate about a growing number of young women choosing to remain child-free in a difficult economy and changing society.
“I get why people don’t talk about it. I understand why people aren’t honest because I think honesty now comes at a cost … they get attacked for it or vilified,” Gonsalves reflects.
“When I posted my list, a lot of people felt extremely seen by it. It also pissed a lot of people off, and I understand why.
“The comments that I was getting from people saying I was so evil for not wanting to have a child, and that it’s supposed to be natural to want to have a child.
“It doesn’t mean that you’re not a maternal loving person just because you don’t want children. I think for some people, that’s kind of how it seems to resonate.
“For some reason, we (women) are conditioned in some way to think that.
“But this isn’t about telling everyone not to have kids, it’s actually telling people to check in with themselves and really think about what they want and need in life. I think people felt really attacked by it.
“I think a lot of people out there now have the same beliefs, but they get so judged for it. ‘I don’t want to’ is never good enough. That’s not how that conversation goes.”
Growing up in Brisbane, Gonsalves often
imagined the white picket fence milestones that would be in her future – that she’d get married, buy a house and have children.
She met Ross Scutts, her now husband, during a night out when she was just 18 and fell madly in love. But those milestones were pushed to the side as she pursued her ambitions as a model and actor, shooting for the top by moving to Los Angeles at 23, where she landed a coveted Guess campaign, a Superbowl commercial and a Hollywood debut within a few years.
When she returned to Queensland in 2020, new life experiences behind her, and was faced with expectations of marriage and children, Gonsalves felt that her future, her white picket fence, had shifted.
“We’ve always been asked the question, ‘do you want kids?’ And I think you just go, yeah, because you’re told and sold that dream, right? And you love your partner,” she explains, now celebrating 15 years with Scutts, 37.
The couple talked at length about whether they wanted children. They quizzed countless friends about their lives as parents and, eventually, Gonsalves wrote a list on her phone, breathing life into all the thoughts that had niggled her subconscious.
As a couple, they privately settled on prioritising their lives together with their beloved 13-year-old Pomeranian Daisy in their Gold Coast apartment.
She casually shared her list with close friends and when one of them raved about it online, it piqued interest among her followers. So she agreed to share it with them, posting the list – unedited screenshots of her 117 reasons to remain childfree – to her Instagram story and went to bed.
“In the modelling industry and the acting world as well, you’re told to just, like, look pretty and shut up. Don’t have an opinion on things
IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU’RE NOT A MATERNAL LOVING PERSON JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT CHILDREN
which will divide people,” Gonsalves says.
“Times changed when we started getting this authority with social media. You have to have a good head on your shoulders … and the courage to speak out about stuff when you think it’s the right thing to do. I’m not out here giving my opinion on everything, but the things that do affect me, I love speaking about.”
Not intending to share it publicly, Gonsalves’ list was peppered with superficial reasons she knows seem vain or high maintenance. It also included more serious factors such as child predators, bullying – which she experienced in her teens – growing up in a world of stress, chaos and financial difficulty, and relationship breakdowns.
She hopes her personal reasons stimulate a broader conversation and a highlight a different point of view that challenges the expectation her generation, and particularly women, feel to juggle parenthood and careers – to have it all – and that it might shed the weight of that expectation from their personal choices. But the reaction she received exposed how strong societal judgment can be.
“It seems to upset people when you say you don’t want to live like someone else … it’s not that there’s anything wrong with anyone’s life. It’s that I don’t want that for my life,” Gonsalves says.
“You don’t have to get married if you don’t want to. You don’t have to have a kid. There’s just so many other different ways to live life and be happy. You don’t need to just do things because that’s what you’re pressured into. You don’t need permission.
“I’m not saying having a kid is the right thing to do, nor is it the wrong thing. But for me, that is the right decision.
“And people just lack empathy … they judge people and tell people what to do with their lives when they are not living that life.”
For Gonsalves, the decision not to have
children wasn’t born out of vanity or selfishness. Instead, it was shaped by profound experiences and personal trauma, including the loss of her father, Rick, in 2015, to suicide. His death after a tumultuous separation from her mother not only shattered her world but compelled her to sever ties with her family.
“I had a really good insight into a marriage that I didn’t want. I didn’t want that life. It’s so hard to watch someone you love go through that,” she says. “What I’ve been through with my family, I just genuinely don’t want to bring a kid into this world.”
Gonsalves is one of four children and had always been close with her father.
When she moved to Los Angeles, she had no professional representation. Scutts, who was pursuing his own career in franchising and capital raising, stepped in as her manager.
They were winging it – hustling to get her foot in the closed doors of the most competitive city in the world.
Her career was starting to gain momentum when her parents separated after 20 years of marriage. She was in her personal trainer’s studio in Beverly Hills when she received a phone call from her sister. Her father had taken his life at just 50 years old.
Gonsalves walked into a corridor and fell to her knees.
“Ross was there, and he just went into full protective mode for me. I don’t even remember what happened after she told me that, I’ve blacked out,” she recalls.
“He (Scutts) picked me up and pulled me into the office and just handled things … I don’t know what I would have done if I was there by myself, truly. And I think about that all the time. How would I have gotten on a plane? I couldn’t even pack my suitcase.”
Her family life had been difficult and strained. During a phone call with her mother at the time, she felt herself break. It was the last time they spoke. She’s not heard from her mother since.
“That snapped me. I was done. It was very hard, but I knew I was making the right decision for my own life. It took that moment when my dad passed away for me to just be like, you know what, I’m not going to accept it anymore. And it set a standard in my life,” she explains.
“That was a real pivotal turning point in my life. I didn’t just lose my dad, I actually made the decision to walk away from everything that I knew, that I was comfortable with.
“People should have wonderful supportive families. But that’s not a reality for a lot of people,” she continues. “Sometimes it’s just not good for you and realising that and taking that on board and making that decision for yourself is the best thing I ever did, truly.”
Gonsalves found strength in her relationship
with Scutts. The pair went through a period of couples counselling, prioritising each other and navigating the loss together.
Gonsalves’ campaign with Guess was released the following year and she soon shot to global stardom in a $10m advertising campaign for Yellow Tail, aired during the 2017 Superbowl. Within two years she added a campaign for Khloe Kardashian’s Good American fashion label and made her Hollywood debut in Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Fighting with My Family.
Scutts was her constant, juggling his career to be by her side in every casting room, and at every meeting. The pair returned to Queensland in 2020 when Scutts lost his father to a devastating battle with cancer and went through his own personal struggles with his family relationships.
“He’s always been so supportive in my life no matter what … and I acknowledge that I’m so lucky to have that, because I know a lot of people who have partners in this industry and they’re not supportive – they’re very jealous, they’re very controlling,” Gonsalves says.
“Whatever life has thrown at us we’ve just tackled together. He’s contributed in such a huge way positively to making me the woman that I am, and me being as confident and comfortable in who I am. People never believed in me, but he always did.”
Scutts had planned to propose before Gonsalves lost her father, but decided the time just wasn’t right.
The pair have now built their lives in Queensland. Gonsalves has forged a successful career in Australia as a long-term L’Oreal ambassador and sought-after model, while appearing on reality shows including Filthy Rich and Homeless and Celebrity Big Brother.
And, after 13 years together, Scutts proposed at Australia Zoo in late 2021 – Gonsalves is a longtime Wildlife Warrior and friend of the Irwin family – presenting her with an engagement ring etched with an initial to represent her father.
They married at Gold Coast beach club La Luna in March 2023, a perfect sunlit day surrounded by their close friends and with Daisy as ring bearer.
Their choice then to not have children was not a flippant one but a deeply considered reflection of their shared experiences and aspirations for the future, and a desire to put each other above all else, as they always have.
“I think it takes big life things to happen for you to know who you are and what you really want in life,” she explains. “He comes before anything for me. He’s my person, he’s my soulmate. Where we are now and what we’ve worked for, we don’t want to change.”
While she never intended to share her list so widely, she hopes in an online world where everyone has an opinion, that the conversation started by her 117 (and growing) reasons will inspire greater empathy for other people’s choices – and that the sole reason of “I don’t want to” will start to be enough.
“My life has always been unconventional,” she says. “Not intentionally, but my career has been unconventional, my relationship with my husband, my choices in life about children.
“At the end of the day, if it’s something that makes you happy, just do it. Life’s not perfect, but I think when you just do what you feel is right for you, you will never regret that.”
HE COMES BEFORE ANYTHING FOR ME. HE’S MY PERSON, HE’S MY SOULMATE