Netflix's Blonde leaves fans wondering if Marilyn Monroe had children after her own 'grim' youth

Marilyn Monroe's new movie has left viewers desperate to know more about the US film star, including if she ever became a mother after surviving an admittedly 'grim' childhood. 

The release of Blonde on Netflix last week has sparked a resurgence of fascination with the iconic US actress, as fans scourge the Internet to find out all there is to know about her complex private life. Questions about her relationships and whether or not Marilyn Monroe had kids, in particular, are top on the list of everyone's minds. 

Starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe, Blonde is an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' 2000 novel of the same name and explores Norma Jeane Mortenson's journey to becoming the legendary Hollywood movie star. It hit headlines ahead of its release on September 23 for its NC-17 rating, becoming the only movie of 2022 and the first ever Netflix production to receive the controversial film certification.

Director Andrew Dominik admitted he was "surprised" by the explicit disclaimer, telling Vulture he thought "we’d colored inside the lines" when it came to graphic content. 

Blonde delves into a number of painful aspects of Marilyn's life, including her unsettled childhood, struggles with drug addiction, and fatal overdose from barbiturates at the age of 36. 

It also explores her second and third marriages with Joe DiMaggio, the American baseball player, and Arthur Miller, the famous playwright. 

The film has left many wondering if Marilyn, whose mother Gladys was institutionalized for mental health problems when she was young, had any children of her own. 

Did Marilyn Monroe have children? 

Marilyn Monroe did not have children, though it is believed that at one stage, she wanted them 'someday' in spite of her own troubled upbringing.

As depicted in Blonde, Marilyn had a troubled youth – largely due to her parents' inability to provide for her. She was made a ward of the state at the age of 8 after her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker, was committed to a mental hospital with paranoid schizophrenia. With her father also out of the picture, Marilyn was placed in an orphanage, which ironically would become her first introduction to show business. 

"I didn't like the world around me because it was kind of grim," she told Life magazine in 1962. "When I heard that this was acting, I said that's what I want to be ... Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it." 

Did Marilyn Monroe have a miscarriage? 

Marilyn reportedly had three miscarriages, all of which occurred during her third marriage to Arthur Miller. 

According to Netflix's The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes, the actress's first pregnancy loss happened in September 1956, just three months after she married the American playwright. She experienced an ectopic pregnancy in 1957, which prevented the fetus from surviving outside the womb, before sadly miscarrying a third time in 1958.