Nadya Suleman has repeatedly pleaded with the paparazzi to leave her and her 14 children alone. But the mother of octuplets has a much more complex relationship with the media than, say, A-list celebrities trying to maintain their privacy.
Almost from the moment she gave birth, those close to her say, Suleman understood one thing: To provide for her family, she was going to have to sell their story.
And Suleman has been selling. For nearly a month, she's been the star of regular "video diaries" on celebrity website RadarOnline. Suleman has appeared on "Dr. Phil" 7 times and escorted "Dateline NBC" and "The Insider" into the hospital to see her babies. On Tuesday, the New York photo agency Polaris Images began selling glossy, posed photos of Suleman and six of her octuplets inside her La Habra home. (Some media outlets say they have not paid her anything; others, such as Polaris, declined to comment.)
But in recent days, Suleman has also been getting some unwanted attention.
Members of the nursing group Angels in Waiting, in a deal brokered by talk-show host Phil McGraw to help care for her children, were fired after they called child protective services and questioned whether Suleman was exploiting her babies. Then, earlier this week, Kaiser Permanente announced that 23 workers had been fired or disciplined for snooping into her records.
The incidents underscore Suleman's difficult balancing act as she tries to protect her children while also providing for them in one of the few ways she can -- by selling access.
Some, including the Angels in Waiting nurses, said they believe Suleman's children might be better off in foster care. But child welfare advocates say their mother should not be condemned simply for selling their story.
"This woman does not care for these kids. . . . She is in here for the paparazzi, the media," Linda West-Conforti, the founder of Angels in Waiting, told McGraw last week.
In news conferences and on television, West-Conforti has described a scene of mayhem at Suleman's house on the night the first two babies came home, with dirty camera cables snaking through the nursery and reporters and their looky-loo family members allowed to wander at will through the house. She said that some reporters screamed at her to "get out of the shot" when she tried to care for the babies and that Suleman sometimes seemed more interested in shopping than in caring for her children.
