Natalie Portman Dissed by Mike Huckabee for Being Pregnant and "Not Married"

Fox News talk show host and possible 2012 presidential candidate says the engaged Oscar winner is part of the "distorted image" Hollywood gives of out-of-wedlock pregnancy

By Natalie Finn Mar 04, 2011 2:35 AMTags
Natalie Portman, Mike Huckabee John Shearer/Getty Images; PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Mike Huckabee talked about Natalie Portman on the radio this week, but it wasn't to congratulate her on the Oscar win.

The former Arkansas governor and possible GOP presidential candidate in 2012 instead rolled the celebrity dice and used Portman as an example of the "distorted image" Hollywood supposedly provides of single motherhood.

To be fair, conservative talk radio host Michael Medved brought up the "visibly pregnant" Black Swan star and the "problematic message" she's sending. But Huckabee, ever the politician, took the ball and ran with it...

"You know Michael," Huckabee replied, "one of the things that's troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, 'Hey look, you know, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having these children,' and they're doing just fine.

"But there aren't really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie," he said.

"And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of [out-of-wedlock children]."

For the record, Portman and baby daddy Benjamin Millepied are engaged, and she's rocking the ring to prove it. (And most people's lives are going to lack Portman glamour regardless, whether they're married, single, childless or parents of 19 and counting.)

Couldn't he have just simply said he doesn't think out-of-wedlock pregnancy is a great idea?

"I hope it is not an encouragement to other 16-year-olds who think that is the best course of action. But at the same time I'm not going to condemn her," Huckabee said in December 2007 of Jamie Lynn Spears, who at the time was 16 and pregnant. (Which was apparently such a glamorous idea, MTV named a show after her.)

"There'll be plenty of people in line to [condemn her] and I always look for the shortest lines. I just hope that she will make another right decision, and that's to give that child all the love and kindness and care that she can."

We're willing to bet that Portman, with or without Millepied, is planning to tackle motherhood in exactly that fashion.