Monica Bellucci & Husband Welcome Their Second Daughter

(Monica was photographed for the March 2010 cover of Italian Vanity Fair while six-months-pregnant)

Monica Bellucci, 45, and her husband, Vincent Cassel, welcomed their second daughter, Léonie, on the evening of Friday, May 21 in Rome.

Both mother and daughter are doing “marvelously,” according to a member of the Monica’s entourage.

Léonie joins big sister, Deva, 5.

Monica said that she posed for the Vanity Fair cover to show that being a middle-aged mother is not a problem.

Monica told the Italian edition of Vanity Fair, “When I had my first child at 39 I was told that if I wanted another I should try straight away but I wasn’t ready. Eventually I decided that I was and I wanted one straight away but babies are not like movies and cannot be organized in a hurry. Women who have children late like me are always told how brave they are and it’s true that the older you are the more risks you run both for the child and yourself. But I don’t feel brave I just feel very lucky. I already have a healthy daughter who I gave birth to in Umbria (Italian region) like an ordinary farm wife. This second pregnancy is just as fantastic but I wouldn’t say I was an example to follow.”

Monica also shared that she had not used medical treatment to become pregnant.

Monica shared, “Maybe it’s because my paternal grandmother had a child at 47 years old but I think I’m just lucky. I know women who would cross the desert on their knees to have a child. Maybe if that had happened to me and I had difficulty then I would have become one of them. It’s a fact a lot of women wait until they are in their late 30s to have children. They have financial security, a home, a partner and then they think of children. You have to remember that women are now living on average until 85 years so there is plenty of time. To put it into perspective if you or I had been born at the beginning of the 19th century we would probably have been dead at 40. We may have been alive but we would have been in a terrible state and probably with no teeth. Things are different today and women in their 60s look fantastic. So now you can have a child in your 40s and look forward to watching them grow up.”

Monica also added that she was posing for Vanity Fair again to protest at Italy’s fertility laws which prevent the use of donor sperm.

Monica said, “Women are going abroad but only if they can afford it. It’s a political problem or rather an exploitation of religion by politics.

Monica also praised her husband, “He is helping. The more time passes by, the more I love the man he has become. When I met him, he was a 28-year-old boy. Now he’s a man with a great sense of responsibility who makes me feel good. Deva needs him as she needs me. I always think that if something happens to me, Vincent is gonna be with our daughters.

“A woman can say: I’ll have kids on my own. And lots of women do it, but having a partner beside us enriches both us and the children.”

Congratulations!

Posted in: Monica Bellucci