Kaley Cuoco says having a baby 'just wasn't on my radar' until she met boyfriend Tom Pelphrey: 'This was not a goal of mine'

Kaley Cuoco didn't have babies on the brain — until she met Tom Pelphrey.

Speaking to Emmy magazine, the Flight Attendant actress opens up about wanting to start a family soon after dating Pelphrey. The couple welcomed daughter Matilda on March 30, less than a year after they made their relationship Instagram-official last May.

Prior to meeting Pelphrey, 40, at a party for his Netflix series Ozark last year, having kids "just wasn't on my radar," Cuoco tells the magazine.

"This was not a goal of mine," says the 37-year-old Emmy nominee, who filed for divorce from second husband Karl Cook in the fall of 2021. "As a young girl I dreamed of it, but I became involved in my career. Then when we met, it was instantaneous — 'Oh my God, I want to have a kid with you.'"

"We both wanted it so badly, which was not what I thought my life would be," she adds. "I love my career and wanted to just keep living my life. But Tom came along, and something changed. We're not 20, so we felt like we probably couldn't wait too long. Then we got so blessed — it happened right away."

The couple revealed that they were expecting last October, about four months after Cuoco and Cook's divorce was finalized. The former Big Bang Theory star was previously married to tennis player Ryan Sweeting, from whom she split in 2015.

Cuoco's sudden pregnancy meant some script changes for her new show, Based on a True Story, which she was shooting at the time. Though her character wasn't originally written as pregnant, Cuoco was able to convince producers to work her real-life pregnancy into the show.

"I'm like, 'What if this character was pregnant?' And they're like, 'Umm ...' And I'm like, 'Think really hard about it because maybe it's a really good idea — and it might be the only option.' They were looking at me, and I'm smiling, and they all went, 'Oh, my God, are you pregnant?' I'm like, 'Uh-huh.'"