Similarly, Sheryl Crow's representative insists that Crow's decision to give the first photos of Wyatt, her adopted son, to OK! was shaped by concern for his safety. (The magazine made a $500,000 donation in her name to the United Nations World Food Programme.) "She was never paid a penny," says Dave Tomberlin, her spokesman. "She was being hounded by paparazzi. They were trespassing onto her property, trying to shoot pictures through the windows. She didn't want a paparazzi photographer to make the money for the first baby photos, so she took OK! up on their offer to donate the money to a worthy cause."
There are plenty of other celebrities who have also declined to profit from photos of their babies. Leaving the hospital with their newborn son in 2002, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick allowed swarms of photographers ample time to snap first portraits of the new family, presumably with the idea that the photos would relieve the hunger for additional pictures. And when Julia Roberts gave birth to her third child this June, she did not auction off any photos. (Portraits of her twins, born in 2004, ran first in People.) Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, featured the first photos of Sam Alexis Woods on the golfer's Web site.
Last year, when Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had their daughter, Suri, they initially inquired with magazines about how much they'd be willing to pay for the first pictures, according to reports at the time. But the couple ended up opting for an editorial shoot with Vanity Fair's Annie Leibowitz instead. Though they didn't get paid for the pictures, the release of the photos turned into a PR bonanza for the couple, whose marriage, of course, had been met with its share of skepticism. As Vanity Fair's Jane Sarkin noted in the issue: "There was no money exchanged, no auction bidding for the pictures—just an invitation to come to Tom's 400-acre retreat in Telluride to photograph the family exclusively for Vanity Fair."
Still, not every baby picture is created equal. Kristy Swanson and Lloyd Eisler, who met on Skating With Celebrities, offered exclusive photos of their baby, born in February, through WireImage, but had no immediate takers. (They eventually landed in Us Weekly.) And, Getty's Motamedi warns, even for A-list offspring, baby pictures are not easy money. "They sleep, then it's feeding time, then they cry, then they sleep," she says. "You don't have that much time to get the perfect shot."
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