‘I Did Whatever I Needed to Do’

The 49-year-old — who famously welcomed eight children at once in 2009 — is promoting a new documentary about her complicated life.

“There were so many false narratives that the public didn’t know what to believe,” Suleman told PEOPLE this week, recalling her name being plastered across headlines before retreating from the public eye.

“They were fed erroneous information,” she insisted, including being financially unstable.

“At the time, I was not unemployed. I was on disability,” she told the publication, before denying using “taxpayers’ money” to grow her family.

“That was a lie,” she said. “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. 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.”

Suleman said that she raised all 14 kids alone and “paid for nannies” until they were two — however, she did recall “really struggling financially.” She previously credited her “strong faith in God” for everything finally falling into place.

She insisted that she “never wanted fame,” when referring to the slander from people saying she played into the headlines to make more money by participating in interviews.

“That’s a number one biggest misconception ever,” she told the publication. “I sued the hospital because they were the reason I ended up in the public eye.”

“I did whatever I needed to do to make ends meet. And that was shaming myself, sacrificing my integrity,” she added. “The life I was leading was not only destructive, it was dark. It was the antithesis of who I am as a person.”

Her documentaries will reportedly give those curious an in-depth look at Suleman’s life, along with the lives of her history-making octuplets, and her decision to have another IVF procedure after having six children.

Suleman famously made headlines in 2009 when she gave birth to octuplets — six boys and two girls — via in vitro fertilization, earning the nickname “Octomom.” Suleman’s octuplets include Noah, Josiah, Nariyah, Maliyah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Makai.

She was implanted with 12 embryos by Dr. Michael Kamrava, a Beverly Hills fertility specialist, who oversaw her previous IVF treatments. Her six other children — Elijah, 23, Amerah, 22, Joshua, 20, Aiden, 19, and twins Calyssa and Caleb, 147 — were also conceived by IVF.

The Lifetime movie and docuseries — titled I Was Octomom and Confessions of Octomom — will premiere March 8 and March 10, respectively.