Maria Menounos is fully aware that her daughter, Athena, is living the high life thanks to all the celebrity gifts she received after her birth.
“It’s funny because she had her bougie wardrobe from all the celebrity friends that have sent [things],” Menounos, 45, exclusively revealed in the newest issue of Us Weekly while promoting her partnership with Bounty. “I took her to church in Kelly Ripa’s Ralph Lauren onesie.”
The “Heal Squad” podcast host revealed that Beth and Howard Stern gave Athena “a bunch of stuff,” including a “beautiful” Burberry hot pink zip up hoodie that she paired with the Ralph Lauren onesie.
“Then all of our friends, they’re sending all these crazy beautiful gifts from Hermes or whatever, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, how am I going to keep this child down to earth?’” Menounos joked.
Us Weekly broke the news in July that Menounos and husband Keven Undergaro welcomed their baby girl via surrogate one month prior.
The couple’s road to parenthood took 10 years after infertility issues and Menounos being diagnosed in 2017 with a brain tumor that made her have to stop IVF treatments. Once she was given a clean bill of health, her doctors advised against her carrying a child, which led the pair to surrogacy.
Now, Menounos has a healthy baby girl to call her own, one who is in the 99 percentile on the growth chart, according to the journalist. “She’s huge. She’s so big,” Menounos told Us of her 5-month-old daughter, sharing that her little one’s shoes “finally fit” and she can wear her pink ballerina slippers.
From the moment Athena came into her life, Menounos has been as present as possible in part because she works from home. “I’m so grateful that I don’t have to look back and say, ‘Oh gosh, where did the time go?’” she said. “I’ve been here for the time milestones wise.”
In addition to growing fast, Menounos told Us her daughter is “starting to talk,” which she has been recording. “She said, ‘hola’ the other day, and I have a video where she mumbles, ‘I love you,’” she gushed. “Because I go, ‘I love you.’ And she goes, ‘hi.’”
In between being a new mom and watching Athena grow, Menounos has found time to team up with Bounty and highlight the company’s efforts to encourage people to adopt pets from Best Friend Animal Society shelters.
“Bounty is one of the most important things in our house, especially as a canine mom,” Menounos said of the partnership, revealing her husband, 56, has a history of making “Bounty stations” in their house to clean up their dogs’ messes quickly.
She continued: “With Bounty, not only are they helping handle the pet messes as usual, in fact they help me with Athena’s messes too, because when she spits all over me, I’m using the quicker picker upper for her too. But they’re also handling adoption fees for the month of November.”
Menounos noted that with inflation on the rise it’s harder for some to adopt animals, but Bounty’s decision to cover the fees during November is trying to remedy that issue. While attending the Best Friend Animal Society’s Super Adoption Event in L.A. last month, she saw firsthand how much Bounty and the animal shelters are doing to help find forever homes for all the pets.
“There’s only one, maybe greater love [than a pet], and that’s when you have a baby. But as a canine mom first, I mean, I know my babies have [been] everything to me forever,” Menounos shared. “And when things are rough in the world, an animal makes everything feel so much better.”
To learn more about Bounty and the Best Friends Animal Society check out their respective websites — and pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now.
With reporting by Andrea Simpson
