‘Young and the Restless’ Star Michelle Stafford Shares Rare Details About Life as a Single Mom
What To Know
- Michelle Stafford, star of The Young and the Restless, opened up about the challenges and rewards of raising her two children as a single mother.
- Stafford welcomed both of her children via gestational surrogate.
- The actress sat down for an interview with Soapy hosts Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart.
Michelle Stafford can do it all. The Daytime Emmy-winning actress has been balancing her full-time job as Phyllis Summers on The Young and the Restless with her family at home since 2009.
The soap icon opened up in a new interview and shared rare insight about raising her kids on her own. She discussed the ups and downs of parenthood, without a partner by her side through it all.
“It’s brutal, as any parent knows,” she told Soapy hosts Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart in the latest edition of their podcast. “It is humbling.” Budig brought up the fact that parenthood isn’t easy for anyone, but she does have a partner, her husband Michael Benson, to rely on. Stafford then offered an interesting viewpoint about relationships when you have children.
“Well, I think it’s good then because I actually think what would be worse is having a horrible partner who criticizes you all the time,” she said. “That’s why I have empathy for those folks out there. Man or woman, if you have a partner that’s constantly undermining you with your kids, like I know that goes on. I don’t have that.”
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Rikaart chimed in about how he has to “clock into the day in a different way” when he doesn’t have his partner around. The actor noted that he and husband Robert Sudduth do “butt heads” from time to time on how to handle certain things in their lives, but when you’re single, you have “no one to do that with.”
“I’ve seen it in relationships, and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t have that,'” the 60-year-old replied.
The General Hospital alum welcomed her first child, daughter Natalia, via gestational surrogate in 2009. Her second child, son Jameson, was born in 2015. The actress tends to keep her family life off social media, but she does share photos and videos of her two kids from time to time. Her daughter recently joined her at the 2025 Daytime Emmy Awards.
