Here’s Why Late Actor Patrick Swayze and His Wife Lisa Niemi Never Became Parents

While Patrick Swayze and his longtime love, Lisa Niemi, were married from 1979 until the actor’s death in 2009, the pair never did have any children — and now the reason behind it is being revealed.

“Both of us loved kids and always intended to have kids. I did become pregnant but I had a miscarriage,” Lisa said in the Paramount Network documentary, I Am Patrick Swayze, in August 2019. “Who knew that miscarriages were as painful as they are, emotionally painful. It was very heartbreaking.”

“I had been seeing an acupuncturist for a long time, and then all of a sudden I was too old,” Lisa said about her hopes of having kids. “I probably should have been better informed about to go about it, but anyway I may have wasted some time. But you know I said ‘you know, how would you feel about adopting?’ He got very teary eyed and he said ‘I want to have children with you.'”

Aside from Lisa, many people close to the Dirty Dancing actor knew of his desire to be a parent. “Patrick very much wanted to be a father because I think he wanted to be as good a father to his child as his dad had been to him,” the late star’s manager, Kate Edwards, explained in the doc. Even Patrick’s brother, Don Swayze, was aware.

“You could tell he would have been a great dad, Just as an uncle you could see it, you could see the amazing dad he would be,” Don revealed. ” … He would have never wanted Lisa feeling bad for having miscarriages, but it crushed him, so they tried.” Even though the happy couple never did have any little ones, they did have something else to help fill the void.

“He was daddy to all the animals on the ranch, those were like our kids,” Lisa said. “There’s a lot of love to give. It’s wonderful to have all these wonderful little beings around to give it to. That’s where it went.”

We’re just glad that Patrick and Lisa still had plenty of love around them.