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Octomom Nadya Suleman has a new profile in The NY Times. To her credit, we haven’t heard about her in years, her kids are still in her care, all 14 of them, and the octuplets are in fourth grade and thriving. Nadya has a very slippery relationship with the truth. I’ve covered her since she shot to fame and she regularly lied, grifted and scammed. The author of this profile alludes to Nadya’s slippery relationship with the truth without calling her out. In Nadya’s mind everything is someone else’s fault – it was her doctor’s fault for implanting her with more embryos than she knew about (her former publicist swears it was Nadya’s idea in a bid to get famous), she was a caricature created by the tabloids and she has a bunch of health problems but she won’t take medication because she is vegan and considers pharmaceuticals poison. It’s hard to follow her train of thought, but that’s how she’s always been. Here’s some of the interview, with more at the source.

Public interest eventually waned, and tasked with caring for so many, Ms. Suleman said, she turned to booze and Xanax from 2011 to 2013, before briefly checking into rehab. During this time, friends and family helped take care of the children.

She was pretending to be that person
“I was pretending to be a fake, a caricature, which is something I’m not, and I was doing it out of desperation and scarcity so I could provide for my family,” she said on the phone in October. “I’ve been hiding from the real world all my life.”

“I was the classic victim,” Ms. Suleman said at her home in November, a day before the worst wildfire in California history turned the skies red. A victim of having an alcoholic father, she said, a victim of having been an only child, hungry to fill that void. A victim of fate since she couldn’t conceive naturally. Most of all, she said, “I was misled by my doctor.”

“He told me we lost six embryos, he said they were expelled out of me, and that’s why he wanted to implant another six,” said Ms. Suleman, who grew up in nearby Fullerton, Calif. She has a B.S. in child development and worked for a state mental hospital for three years before suffering an injury that resulted in over $80,000 in disability payments. A subsequent family inheritance of $60,000 helped fund her IVF.

Dr. Kamrava has said she pressured him into the multiple rounds of implants, an accusation echoed recently by David Shofet, a rabbi and a childhood friend of the doctor.

She claims she never wanted the attention
“I was selfish and immature,” said Ms. Suleman, now 43. She doesn’t admit fault, she wouldn’t change the past, she loves her angels too much. But she admits to an ever-consuming “need for more.”

“I never wanted the attention,” she said, somewhat contradictorily. She said that hospital staff breached her records and sold her out to the media: “There were helicopters flying over the hospital while I was giving birth.”

Her answers kept zigzagging.

“I have PTSD from all the reporters coming in over the years. I would take whatever I could back in the days, and I would let them in. I was spiraling down a dark hole. There were no healthy opportunities for Octomom. I was doing what I was told to do and saying what I was told to say. When you’re pretending to be something you’re not, at least for me, you end up falling on your face.”

“Octomom was media created. I believe most media is filtered and fake. They created this caricature…”

“I’m a raw vegan, and I perceive pharmaceuticals to be poison.” she said. She relies on prayer, and home exercise. “If I didn’t climb 40 miles a week on the StairMaster, which acts as a buffer, then I’d be completely incapacitated.”

[From The NY Times]

I came away from this really wondering how she copes on a daily basis. It sounds like her 16 year-old daughter does a lot of the work and like the 9 year-old octuplets fend for themselves too. She doesn’t sound like she’s changed too much, but given that we haven’t heard from her in so long she must have. She went to rehab in 2013 for alcohol and Xanax so maybe much of her abrasive personality was due to addiction and pills. I didn’t miss her. I’m just glad her kids are ok.

The caption on the post below where she’s on the stairmaster (I’m not including it, you can see it on Instagram) goes into her physical ailments. She is such a pretentious writer.

Turkey Trot 5k Tradition…#FamilyRun #HappyThanksgiving #VeganThanksgiving

A post shared by Solomon Family (@nataliesuleman) on Nov 22, 2018 at 6:43pm PST

The Octomom’s babies are about to turn 10. We decided it was time to check in. https://t.co/bauMEYPj1D

— NYT Styles (@NYTStyles) December 16, 2018

Any other parents exceptionally stressed and overwhelmed the first week back to school? ? I must admit six (yes I said six!) drop offs and pick ups monopolize most of my day, as I am an official bus driver (but wouldn’t have it any other way lol). Per usual, none of the older kids want anything to do with taking a picture, as much as I begged! ?#BackToSchool #BackToStressAndNoSleepingIn ?

A post shared by Solomon Family (@nataliesuleman) on Aug 26, 2018 at 4:25am PDT

What raw, ethical vegan becomes stuck in a state of cognitive dissonance in the In and Out drive thru, ordering decayed carcass for their teen? While drinking a healthy turmeric raw shake. #SuchAnEnabler #HypocritcalVegan ???

A post shared by Solomon Family (@nataliesuleman) on May 13, 2017 at 6:06pm PDT