Tyra Banks took the leap into parenthood earlier this year when she welcomed her and partner Erik Asla’s son, York, by way of a surrogate. The savvy businesswoman tells Steve Harvey about her journey to motherhood.
“Motherhood was always a part of my plan,” she says. “Since I was 23-years-old, I told myself I was going to have a baby in three years. So every year I’d say, ‘In three years, in three years, in three years, in three years.’ And waited too d*** long, because I was so focused on work, and really just wanting to find that partner to make sure they would be around and not just be somebody that transient in my life.”
Upon finding someone with which to share her life, Tyra was ready to have a child. Unfortunately, fertility issues stood in her way.
“When I was ready to get pregnant, it wasn’t so easy,” she says. Tyra and Erik turned to a surrogate after exhausting all other measures of procreation. “York is my egg and his daddy Erik’s sperm,” Banks reveals. “He is my genetic child but I needed another oven to carry him.”
This year was the first time that Tyra Banks had the pleasure of celebrating Mother’s Day as a mom. “I’m hearing, ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ and I can’t believe how lucky I am,” she exclaimed in May. “Of all the fashionable hats I wear, I love being a #mother the most. #HappyMothersDay from me and my mama to all the wonderful women of the world!”
York is Tyra Banks and Erik Asla’s first child together. The America’s Next Top Model executive producer has been in the fashion industry for more than twenty years and has seen her show become a staple in the realities series spectrum of television. Rita Ora replaced Tyra Banks as host for the twenty-second season of America’s Next Top Model.
