NATE TALKS FAMILY
The designer dad is ready to add another member to his family
Nate Berkus reveals his plans for more kids.
Nate Berkus has taken to fatherhood like, well, a hammer to a nail. “Being a dad is the most rewarding and fun experience of my life,” the 45-year-old interior designer, who became a popular TV personality when Oprah Winfrey introduced him to viewers back in 2002, has said. So it makes perfect sense he’d want to give his 2-year-old daughter, Poppy ( he and his husband of three years, fellow designer Jeremiah Brent, welcomed her via a surrogate in 2015), a sibling. “We don’t have a timeline,” Nate tells In Touch, “but we would definitely love to have more children.” Here, the star of TLC’S Nate & Jeremiah by Design opens up to Katie Bruno about his partnership with Nicorette, what it’s like to work and live with his hubby and the most embarrassing songs in his itunes library!
Tell us why you love being a dad so much. NB: Well, I’m particularly connected to this age. Poppy is 2, and there’s logic and rationalizations and arguments. I love seeing how her little mind works.
What are some of your favorite things to do with her? NB: She likes the park and she loves to go to Target and ride in the cart. She has a ton of playdates, and we have music classes in our home so we open the door and fifteen 2-yearolds walk in, which is amazing.
What’s Jeremiah like as a father? He’s terrific. We fell into our roles fairly naturally. We both bathe her, but he reads to her every night and gets her milk ready in the morning. I make sure she has health insurance! Speaking of health, why did you team up with Nicorette, which helps people quit smoking? NB: I think it would surprise a lot of people that I was a smoker. I used Nicorette gum to quit five years ago. At the time I knew I was going to start a family, and my self-definition as a married soon-to-be dad didn’t involve smoking.
Good for you! You and Jeremiah live and work together. What’s that like? NB: Being with a person all day long and then coming home to raise a 2-year-old together is not for the faint of heart! But we like being around each other.
Do you ever get on each other’s nerves? NB: Of course! We had to figure it out so that if one person woke up on the wrong side of the bed, it was like, “OK, what’s going on? Can you get it together so we can move on?” We learned to solve things in real time.
Your show is one of the first to feature two gay dads working and living together. Do you think it’s having any social impact? NB: You never know who’s watching. We’ve had really amazing feedback.
That’s great. NB: Yes. We’re proud of our family, proud of the life we live and proud of our work, and we really wanted to share that with everyone. ◼