Rachael Ray doesn’t regret her decision to be child-free — despite backlash.
The cook, 56, recalled being “bashed for [her choice] over the decades” in Tuesday’s episode of her “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” podcast.
Ray, who has been married to her husband, John M. Cusimano, since September 2005, instead gushed about her role as a dog mom.
The “Rachael Ray Show” host called her pets a “ray of light” during “dark days.”
She said, “For me, if I have the absolute worst day, or I’m sick as a dog — as the expression goes — the thing that makes me feel best is to go home and literally climb into bed under a blanket with my dog.”
Ray went on to praise animals for “never talk[ing] back” and “always want[ing] to hug you.”
The businesswoman added, “It makes you a better human to have an animal. … I don’t understand folks that are not into having an animal in their lives.
“Because it just makes you happier and better,” she continued. “And you have all this love in your life all the time no matter what.”
Ray briefly touched on the losses of her and Cusimano’s dogs Isaboo and Boo before adopting their current pooch, Bella.
“They were everything to us, and they both lived a very long life,” she said.
In 2007, the cookbook author explained to People that she did not have the “time” to welcome children since she “worked too much to be an appropriate parent.”
She admitted, “I feel like a bad mom to my dog some days because I’m just not here enough. I just feel like I would do a bad job if I actually took the time to literally give birth to a kid right now and try and juggle everything I’m doing.”
As for whether Ray felt she was missing out by not becoming a mom, she told the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that she “really” did not feel that way.
She has worked with children over the years, calling them her “focus” in a 2008 New York Times interview.
Ray and Cusimano, 57, have been together since meeting at a mutual friend’s birthday party in 2001.
