“Lord of Scents” Joel Cruz is now a father of eight and he recently shared some details about his children’s surrogate mother and how much he has spent on surrogacy.
It was a couple of weeks ago when Cruz introduced his eighth child by uploading a photo of him on Instagram.
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In an interview with GMA-7’s Tunay na Buhay hosted by Rhea Santos, Cruz shared his some of his experiences as a father and even gave the viewers a glimpse of his children.
He also said that all of his children are full siblings since they all have the same mother, a Russian woman named Lilia.
“Physically, she’s around 5’11”, kahawig niya si Julia Roberts,” Cruz said describing Lilia.
He then said that he decided to have the procedure in Russia because it was legal for single parents to have children via surrogacy there.
Cruz said that initially wanted to go to Ukraine but due to legal reasons, he flew to Russia instead after he was referred to a lawyer there.
He said that he was immediately interviewed by the lawyer on why he wanted to have children.
Cruz then shared that he passed the first interview and the lawyer promised that he would be able to have children via surrogacy.
The fragrance mogul then said that the lawyer’s services were expensive but it was all worth it.
When Santos further probed on how much he spent, Cruz answered, “Well, initially you have to pay P6 million. ‘Yun yung pag-accept ng program and hindi sila titigil hanggang sa magkaroon ka ng anak. Pero, of course, you have to pay for the extra procedures, umaabot ng P12 million.”
Cruz previously revealed that Lilia carried the first set of twin in 2012. However, the 2nd set and 3rd set of twins, as well as the 7th and 8th children, were carried by another surrogate mother, but all egg cells came from Lilia.
In a previous interview with PEP.ph, Cruz said that eight children are enough for him but he is open to the idea of adding more.
“If our good Lord allows me to have 1 or 2 more daughters, I would be very, very happy!” he said.
