Nadya “Octomom” Suleman slammed “false narratives” about using “taxpayer money” to conceive her 14 kids and got real about her finances while raising her large family.

“The public didn’t know what to believe. They were fed erroneous information,” Nadya, 49, told People while sharing the truth about her income in an interview published on Thursday, March 6. “At the time, I was not unemployed. I was on disability.”

The mother of 14 gained fame in 2008 after undergoing IVF treatments with Dr. Michael Kamrava — who implanted 12 embryos — resulting in the birth of the world’s first surviving octuplets. His license was later revoked by the California Medical Board, as medical guidelines advise implanting no more than two embryos at a time.

After details of her financial struggles and the expensive procedures made headlines, Nadya was accused of taking advantage of government assistance to conceive her children.

“I did not use taxpayers’ money. I’d saved so much money working as a psychiatric technician at a state psych hospital. I saved well over a hundred thousand dollars,” she explained. “I used all of that money. Instead of buying a house I bought in vitros. I also had an inheritance close to $60,000 that paid for it too, which I’m not proud of. It should have gone for my older kids. I also got student loans, but I paid for everything, period.”

After her children were born, her money problems only continued and Nadya was publicly judged for participating in paid interviews to make money. In addition, she also starred in a solo adult film. The California resident said the “biggest misconception” was that she “wanted fame,” as she later sued the hospital because they breached HIPAA and were “the reason” she ended up in the public eye. California health regulators ultimately fined Bellflower hospital for $250,000 over the privacy breach.

“I did whatever I needed to do to make ends meet. And that was shaming myself, sacrificing my integrity. The life I was leading was not only destructive, it was dark. It was the antithesis of who I am as a person,” Nadya explained, noting she left the spotlight in 2013 to pursue her former career and focus on raising her family.

“I went right back to my old profession as a therapist working 40 hours a week,” she explained. “I used my education. For years I was typecast as the welfare recipient, unemployed mother, all of which is wrong.”

Nadya left that job in 2018 after the care for her son Aidan — who is profoundly autistic — became “overwhelming.”

“I’ve always been his only provider, but I never got paid,” she described. “So in 2018, that’s when I started to get actually paid. It’s decent money, but it’s still nothing compared to what we need to make to be comfortable in life.”

Regarding her current finances, Nadya lives with 11 of her children in a three-bedroom townhouse in Orange County, California, while her eldest three have grown up and live on their own. She said she receives assistance from her community, highlighting one couple in particular that “offered us to live here half the rent just because they’re good Christian people.”