Inside Mae Whitman’s Private World
Originally appeared on E! Online
One fine day, Mae Whitman made an announcement: She’d officially entered parenthood.
No, not the hit series she starred on from 2010 to 2015. But at the end of last month, Whitman revealed she’s officially a mom.
“Not to be a Bieber about it but I too just gave birth to our son, Miles,” the actress wrote on Instagram Aug. 28, giving a nod to how Justin Bieber and Hailey Bieber welcomed baby Jack Blues days before. “From the moment we heard the first tiny sound out of his tiny piggy mouth we were besotted.”
Named after her Parenthood costar and BFF Miles Heizer, Whitman noted her little one “is the kindest, gentlest, smartest, funniest little beebee and he’s our best friend (pretty much exactly like his namesake Uncle Miles @younggoth).”
And if the moniker isn't enough to make fans’ hearts swoon, then the adorable photo she shared of the newborn’s tiny toes just might be.
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“We are infinitely grateful he chose us as his parents,” the 36-year-old continued before giving a shout-out to her doctor, doula and everyone on her care team “for guiding our little family through all the unexpected twists and turns safely and with love and grace and to everyone in our circle who has shown us such radical generosity and support. We love you! We’re so happy!”
Perhaps the namesake shouldn’t surprise fans. After all, Whitman has given glimpses into her friendship with Heizer on social media before. He was even part of her pregnancy announcement along with fellow Parenthood alum and dear friend Lauren Graham.
“Not to make a Parenthood episode out of it or anything but!!! Mother’s Day looking a little different this year!” Whitman wrote on Instagram May 12 alongside a photo of her debuting her baby bump and posing with her castmates —proceeding to share throwbacks of when her character Amber was pregnant on the series. “Can’t wait to meet you, huge baby kicking my insides to filth!”
And as the One Fine Day star waited to meet her new family member, she kept much of her pregnancy private—posting only an “8-month update” at the end of June in which she wrote she was “huge and achy but happy” and offering a peek inside her Laguna Beach babymoon.
Granted, Whitman has been keeping much of her personal life off the ‘gram as of late. In fact, she’s shared only four posts to her Instagram feed so far this year—with her lastest promoting a virtual autograph signing.
"Exciting!!!!" she wrote on her Instagram Stories Sept. 3. "I've been missing going to cons and meeting you guys since I've been pregs and raising this little dude and I'm jazzed to sort of get to do it from home."
And prior to her May pregnancy announcement, the Up Here celeb hadn’t uploaded anything to her IG grid in nine months.
However, Whitman’s posts weren’t always such a rarity. In previous years, she’s shared content about her latest projects, interviews from her podcast and press tours, and behind-the-scenes pics with current and former cast members (remember when she reunited with Jennifer Aniston almost three decades after playing the Brown Bird scout on Friends?).
Whitman’s social media platforms also provided a way for fans to get to know her better, with her sharing her painful battle with endometriosis, coming out as pansexual on Twitter in 2021, uploading candids with pals and championing causes close to her heart.
But whether the Good Girls star is posting a lot or a little, she’s going to do it on her terms versus feeling pressured to pop up on fans’ feeds.
“I did a weird promise to myself that I’ve obviously since violated but still pretend to uphold, which is the second that social media, it becomes un-fun for me, I’m out,” she said on an August 2023 episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast. “Because I was like, 'Something about this feels like it’s dangerous.'”
Looking back on the early days of social media, Whitman remembered thinking, it felt like “the Wild West and not in a fun way.”
“I feel that this could become not healthy mentally,” The DUFF alum continued, “and I don’t want it to become a facet of my career where others can control it or can make it into a tool that is something that I don’t have control of. Because it’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a genuine expression. I feel like, obviously, it does become a part of your career, apparently. But I will say I don’t allow for people to strongarm me into doing social media stuff.”
Because as Whitman sees it, if she starts doing what others tell her to do with her channel, “then it’s all gonna come crashing down.”
“The one thing I cling to is that I’m like, 'Look, this is what it is. If you don’t like it, you can move on. This is what I have to offer,'” she added. “I’m an acquired taste.”
But while Whitman may occasionally stay quiet on @mistergarf—an Instagram handle she noted on the podcast was named after a man she met in Jamaica who gave her a tuna plant and told her to wash her hair with it—it’s not like she’s lived a life completely out of the public eye.
As a matter of fact, she's been in the film and TV industry since she was a kid—after making her debut in 1994's When a Man Loves a Woman, she appeared in movies like Independence Day and Hope Floats—and credits her parents with helping her navigate childhood stardom.
“I got so lucky,” the Arrested Development actress said in an April 2023 episode of Salon Talks. “I had genuinely good parents who were super mature. They helped me get my priorities in order. We communicated about everything. The priority was always truly my happiness as a child. It would be like, 'If there’s a field trip to the dinosaur museum and it coincides with this Martin Scorsese movie, too bad. She wants to do the field trip.' It was about me as a human being and what I wanted to do.”
While Whitman's list of credits continued to grow as she got older, she admitted it wasn't an easy path.
“This has been a struggle definitely my whole life,” she admitted on a 2018 episode of Off Camera with Sam Jones. “I think especially when I was going from being a preteen to a teenager because that’s such a specific time where you go from being one of the only kid actors out there that can do it. And I was just like, ‘I can do everything, and it’s all based on talent and here I go cruising along.’ And then you hit puberty and it becomes more about your looks and there’s a whole bunch of other people flooding in from other places and other states trying to do it. And you’re a little like, 'But I don’t understand. Excuse me, I was already here.'"
With all the “noise” in the industry, Whitman noted, it became important for her to focus on her most important role: Being true to herself.
“You just have to focus on being your best self and knowing who you are and being honest in your own thing and that’s really when it comes,” she continued. “Because it feels like you’re all trying to squeeze into this same little box, but really there’s something that every individual person has that nobody else has and I really feel like it’s important to work on honing that.”
Because Whitman knows her worth and she wants to team up with others who do, too.
“If you can sort of be gentle on yourself when somebody doesn’t get it and get who you are and be like, ‘All right, well peace. Good luck,’” she later added on the show. “I feel lucky that I at least have enough of a perspective. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when they’re like, ‘You’re not pretty enough for this role’ or some other thing like that….It’s always painful but you sort of let the emotions of it pass and roll off your back because you know underneath your undercurrent is strong.”
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