The life of Hilary Swank is a Cinderella story come to life. She worked very hard to rise from her disadvantaged beginnings to Hollywood’s highest peak, only pausing to care for her dying father. After years of helping others, everything came together at once, enabling her to realize a lifelong dream of becoming a mother.
Having recently welcomed healthy twins, the 48-year-old recently celebrated. However, as she adjusts to motherhood and takes care of her adorable young children, online trolls are harassing her and detracting from a happy occasion.
After portraying a transgender man in Boys Don’t Cry, Swank saw a significant increase in her level of fame in Hollywood (1999). For her outstanding performance, she won numerous accolades, including her first Oscar and Golden Globe. She had prior roles in The Next Karate Kid (1994), the fourth movie in the Karate Kid series, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992).
She is perhaps best known to moviegoers for her role as Maggie in Clint Eastwood’s inspirational sports drama Million Dollar Baby, in which she also starred alongside Morgan Freeman.
In the film, her amateur boxer character suffers a million-dollar defeat while competing for a title with the World Boxing Association after taking an unsportsmanlike sucker punch.
She received the award for best lead acting at both the Oscars and the Golden Globes.
Her tale truly is a Cinderella tale.
I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream, Swank said in her acceptance speech for Million Dollar Baby.
Swank’s mother sacrificed her own dreams so that her daughter could realize theirs while growing up in a trailer park.
Swank has put in a lot of work and earned her success since she was 15 years old.
She took a break from her incredibly lucrative career in 2014 to take care of her father, Stephen Michael Swank, an Air Force veteran and active Air National Guard member who required a risky lung transplant.
Because her father’s recovery from the extensive surgery took so long, the one-year break ended up being three.
She wasn’t seen relaxing at any point during that time. Her most recent project was focused on her clothing company’s mission statement, which combines “high performance and high fashion” design for women.
Swank continued her acting career while also providing for her ailing father, who resided with her until his passing in 2021.
Swank’s first artwork after three years of caring for her father is the epitome of her commitment to her family. Swank portrays a woman coping with her mother’s Alzheimer’s journey in the 2018 movie What They Had.
She started filming again in other countries for films like the upcoming horror film The Hunt, the sci-fi series Away on Netflix, and Alaska Daily, in which she plays a well-known journalist in Anchorage.
Swank frequently uses her fame and time to support various causes, such as cancer research and animal welfare. She established the Hilaroo Foundation, which combines her name with Karoo, a stray dog she saved from euthanasia while filming in Africa, to foster mutual healing, as she had done with animals when she was younger.
She claimed that animals were “one of the things that filled my heart” in an interview with Health because “none of them looked at me for anything other than for who I am.”. They said they’d be with me for the whole trip, and they made that clear right away. Few people have the same impact on my heart as they do.
The actress from Freedom Writers has had difficulty falling in love because she innately puts the needs of others before her own—a quality she inherited from her mother.
She wed Chad Lowe in 1997, but their divorce from Rob Lowe, a celebrity drug addict, and his younger brother, happened in 2006. Swank acknowledged that she needed to give herself some much-needed attention in a 2008 interview with Vanity Fair. I’ve always looked after everyone; it’s part of my routine. I took care of Chad as well as my mom, dad, and my parents. I no longer want to move that. Even though it’s a hard habit to break, I ultimately gave up some of myself.
In an interview with USA Today, Swank claimed that having her elderly father live with her was instrumental in helping her find a good man.
It’s a pretty good way to get rid of people. You apparently reside with your father. You can proceed with things more quickly after you respond to that. The couple “had that same ethos and belief in being there for your family,” according to Swank. She first met Phillip Schneider, who is now 45, when she was caring for her father. Everything ran smoothly as a result of it.
After two years of dating, the Logan Lucky actress, who went on to marry businessman Schneider, started to recognize her needs more clearly.
The honorable actor’s world started to make sense.
Swank announced her pregnancy in October 2022. She attempted to cover up her expanding belly with hastily made clothes, but when the truth was revealed, everyone was shocked—not even the Alaska Daily crew was aware. The actress convinced the crew that she required a stunt double because she was unable to complete several tasks while pregnant and required one to film in her place.
Swank asserted in an interview with Extra TV that she was carrying a “geriatric pregnancy” up until about four years ago, when “all the pieces needed to come together and be correct.”.
“I just thought about it even when I was a little girl,” she continued. Because I was considering that, I’m happy to be pregnant and here.
She wasn’t particularly shocked to learn that she was expecting twins. The likelihood of having a pair is increased by the fact that both of her grandmothers are twins, and she remembered saying as a young girl that she would have two kids.
When Swank was six months pregnant, she spoke to ET about the positive responses, saying, “It’s amazing to see a lot of ladies in their 40s going, ‘You gave me hope,’ because once you believe something can happen, you have a different mind pattern, you know what I mean? The performer advised that you should try to overcome your challenges.
Swank posted an image of an ultrasound in March that appeared to show a baby flexing its arm. She dubbed it “Baby A, Million Dollar Baby”.
Kate Hudson retaliated, saying, “We all know that baby A already has mom’s shoulders.”.
Despite the fact that they were undoubtedly due on April 16, her father’s birthday, her babies arrived a week early.
Swank should have been praised for the way she handled her father’s passing, her pregnancy at 48, and a demanding work schedule, but she was criticized instead.
Swank shared a photo of herself holding the newborns and gazing at the setting sun to announce the birth of her children. One of her supporters criticized her instead of congratulating her, saying, “How reckless to bring babies into the world at such an advanced age just to satisfy some inner selfish need for children. Your kids’ parents will be gone or living in a nursing home when they’re adults, whichever comes first.
Another person said, “AREN’T YOU LIKE 50 YEARS OLD, YOU’LL BE IN YOUR 70S WHEN YOU FINISH COLLEGE. They might make it to their wedding, who knows.
Go f— yourself, which is an acronym, was Emmy Rossum’s response.
Rossum and Swank starred in the 2014 movie You’re Not You together.
It should be noted that women are now giving birth to children more frequently in their forties.
According to a 2018 Pew Research survey, more women are becoming pregnant “near the end of their childbearing years.”. The report asserts that women’s increased labor force participation, educational attainment, and postponed marriage are to blame for the rising numbers. According to the study, women “are likely to continue delaying having children” given these social and cultural trends. ”.
Swank is not the only well-known person in their 40s to give birth to live, healthy children.
Among them are Tammy Duckworth, a U.S. politician, Cameron Diaz, who gave birth to Raddix at the age of 47, and Susan Sarandon, who gave birth to her three children at the ages of 39, 42, and 45. Beverly D’Angelo, S. Al Pacino’s spouse, gave birth to Maile Pearl at 49; Janet Jackson, S. Eissa Al Mana at 50; and the senator, S. Maile Pearl at 49.
If you allow yourself to believe in all realms, says Swank, then the sky truly is the limit.
