Shonda Rhimes has felt pressure to "justify" how she had kids.

The 55-year-old producer - who has Harper, 22, and Emerson, 12, via adoption, as well as Beckett, 11, via surrogacy - has faced lots of "questions" over the years about how she's had kids.

During an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Shonda shared: "You know what's wonderful is my parents [got] on board but had a lot of questions about adoption.

"They had a lot of questions about what that was going to mean and how that was going to be. Although in my family, it sort of never mattered how you came into the family. You're just part of the family."

Shonda hasn't discussed every aspect of her surrogacy journey with her family. However, Shonda's family have embraced all of her children.

She said: "Surrogacy brought up a lot of questions from my family. That just felt ... I mean, I don't think I've to this day, I still haven't had the sperm donor conversation with my father. Do you know what I mean? Like those conversations.

"But for me, what's amazing is the minute there's a baby, my whole family is in love and embraces [them]. Our family is really great in that way. We're a very big, loud, boisterous family who, like everybody, is super embraced."

Shonda felt pressure to "justify" her life choices for a long period of time. But she's now much more comfortable with the path she's chosen in her life.

The producer - who has enjoyed huge success with TV shows such as Grey's Anatomy and Bridgerton - said: "For a while, I think I felt like I had to justify it. You know what I mean? I felt like I had to sort of, I don't even know. I felt like I had to justify it for people.

"And that's ridiculous. At a certain point, I was like, however I decide, you know, it's like nobody puts in the paper like so and so had a baby via C-section. Nobody says this is their C-sectioned child. So how my children came into my family is not the issue."