26 celebrities who opened up about their miscarriages

In September 2020, Chrissy shared an emotional Instagram post about experiencing the loss of her baby after spending days in the hospital for complications with a weak placenta. "We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before," she wrote in her caption. "We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn’t enough." She continued on to mention that while she and her husband, John Legend, usually wait until just before birth to decide on names for their kids, they had begun to call this forthcoming baby by the name Jack. "To our Jack—I’m so sorry that the first few moments of your life were met with so many complications, that we couldn’t give you the home you needed to survive. We will always love you." Our hearts are with you, Chrissy.

Hilaria, who is married to actor Alec Baldwin, has always been pretty open about her experience with miscarriage. In November 2019, she shared a heart-breaking video on her Instagram of her six-year-old daughter Carmen's reaction to being told that the baby they were expecting wasn't coming after all. "I’m really devastated right now...I was not expecting this when I went to my scan today," she wrote in her caption. "I don’t know what else to say...I’m still in shock and don’t have this all quite clear." The sad news of the pregnancy loss came at the four-month mark for Hilaria, who had previously suffered another pregnancy loss in April 2019. 

In June 2019, Alanis had an interview with SELF magazine where she opened up about the multiple miscarriages she’s experienced in the past. “Between Ever and Onyx there were some false starts,” she told the magazine. “I always wanted to have three kids, and then I’ve had some challenges and some miscarriages, so I just didn’t think it was possible.” “I chased and prayed for pregnancy and learned so much about my body and biochemistry and immunity and gynecology through the process,” she continued. “It was a torturous learning and loss-filled and persevering process.”

In November 2020, the Duchess of Sussex wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times in which she talked about going through a miscarriage in the summer of 2020. After feeling a sharp cramp in her abdomen while changing Archie one morning, her intuition kicked in: “I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”. Markle was also candid about how taboo it is to talk about having a miscarriage despite how common it is, writing, “Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few. In the pain of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them will have suffered from miscarriage. Yet despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning.” Meghan became pregnant again a few months later, and she and Prince Harry are expecting a baby girl sometime in the summer of 2021.

In April 2019, the singer discussed the meaning behind the opening lyrics to her song, “Happy,” and revealed that she had had a miscarriage when she was a teenager. “The reason I said (that it felt like my body hated me) is because I’ve always had this very tomboy, very strong gymnast body, but actually at 17 I had a miscarriage, and I was going to have that child,” Pink told USA TODAY. “But when that happens to a woman or a young girl, you feel like your body hates you and like your body is broken, and it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. I’ve had several miscarriages since, so I think it’s important to talk about what you’re ashamed of, who you really are and the painful sh*t. I’ve always written that way.”

In a November 2018 interview with Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts, the former first lady of the United States revealed that she had had a miscarriage 20 years prior. “I felt lost and alone, and I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them,” she said in the interview. “We sit in our own pain thinking somehow we’re broken.” She then revealed that she and her husband had to turn to IVF for the conception of their two daughters, 20-year-old Malia and 17-year-old Sasha. 

In their 2013 HBO documentary, Life is But A Dream, the usually-private couple opened up about the miscarriage they suffered some time before welcoming their daughter, Blue Ivy, in 2012. “About two years ago, I was pregnant for the first time,” said Beyoncé. “And I heard the heartbeat, which was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life.” But sometime later, she went for a checkup and the heartbeat was gone. “I went into the studio and wrote the saddest song I’ve ever written in my life,” she said. “And it was the best form of therapy for me, because it was the saddest thing I’ve ever been through.”

After the actor/model got married to screenwriter Chris Henchy in 2001, they had trouble getting pregnant and eventually turned to IVF. Her first go at the process took, but it ended in miscarriage just three months later. “We were crushed,” she said. “Up till then, I thought simply because it was time and I wanted to have a baby, it would work out.” However, she found a way to find hope in what can seem like a hopeless situation. “In a way, it was a blessing that I’d started with a positive result,” she said. “I told myself it happened once, it can happen again.”

In a tearful interview with CBS Sunday Morning in September 2018, the singer revealed that she had had three separate miscarriages in the span of two years. “We got pregnant early 2017, and it didn’t work out,” she said. “In the beginning, it was like, God we know this just wasn’t your timing, and that is all right, we will bounce back and figure our way through it and got pregnant again in the spring, and it didn’t work out.” Carrie said she got pregnant again in early 2018, but lost that pregnancy, too. “At that point, it was kind of like, ‘OK, what’s the deal? What is all of this?’” she said.

Read more: 12 celebrities share what it was like trying to conceive

In an October 2003 interview with People, the Friends actor got candid about how she and her then-husband, David Arquette, were having trouble becoming parents. “I get pregnant pretty easily,” Courtney said. “But I have a hard time keeping them.” She said that she had miscarried “quite a few times, [but] bounce back pretty quickly. I don’t say it’s a walk in the park. But what are you going to do? We just try again.”

In January 2021, less than two years after her first miscarriage, Whitney Port revealed that she had suffered another pregnancy loss. She took to Instagram to share how this miscarriage felt different than her first one, saying, “Last time, I don't think I was ready to have another child, and I had different feelings about the miscarriage. This time, I really connected. I was actually excited and enjoying the pregnancy. I envisioned it all.” While on Chriselle Lim’s podcast, Being Bümo, she explained that testing after the miscarriage revealed that the fetus had a chromosomal issue. She went on to discuss the guilt she faced after experiencing a second miscarriage. “I felt like, 'Why is this happening to me? Was there anything that I did wrong? Is there anything wrong with my body, now that this has happened twice?'” She has since worked through those initial feelings and now believes that the right baby will come to her at the right time.

“I have had eight or nine miscarriages,” the actor wrote in her 2017 memior, We’re Going to Need More Wine. “For three years, my body has been a prisoner of trying to get pregnant—I’ve either been about to go into an IVF cycle, in the middle of an IVF cycle, or coming out of an IVF cycle.” In an interview with People about her new book, Gabrielle admitted that she didn’t used to want kids of her own until being with her step-kids changed her mind. “I became a stepmom,” she said. “and there was no place I’d rather be than with them.”

In June 2016, the TV chef posted on Facebook about the news that his wife, Tana, had a miscarriage late in her pregnancy. “We had a devastating weekend as Tana has sadly miscarried our son at five months,” he wrote. “We’re together healing as a family, but we want to thank everyone again for all your amazing support and well wishes. I’d especially like to send a big thank you to the amazing team at Portland Hospital for everything they’ve done. Gx”

In a 2012 interview with Katie Couric, the Australian actor explained how he and his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, had a difficult time trying to conceive naturally. “We did IVF and Deb had a couple of miscarriages.,” he said. “I’ll never forget it—it happens to one in three pregnancies, but it’s very very rarely talked about… It’s almost secretive, so I hope Deb doesn’t mind me bringing it up now. It’s a good thing to talk about it. It’s more common, and it is tough. There’s a grieving that you have to go through.”

In September 2018, the Dawson’s Creek actor shared an Instagram post about how he and his wife had experienced three miscarriages over the years. “It will tear you open like nothing else,” he wrote. “It’s painful and it’s heartbreaking on levels deeper than you may have ever experienced. So don’t judge your grief, or try to rationalize your way around it. Let it flow in the waves in which it comes, and allow it its rightful space. And then… once you’re able… try to recognize the beauty in how you put yourself back together differently than you were before.  He also talked about how society needs a new word for miscarriage, because he says the word suggests that the mother is somehow at fault. “From what I’ve learned, in all but the most obvious, extreme cases, it has nothing to do with anything the mother did or didn’t do. So let’s wipe all blame off the table before we even start.”

In an October 2016 interview with Today shortly after the birth of his daughter, Winnie, the late night host talked about why he and his wife, Nancy Juvonen, didn’t tell anyone they were expecting a baby via surrogate. “We tried before, we told people and then it didn’t happen,” he recalled. “And it’s just really depressing. It’s really hard on everybody.”

Back in November 2010, the singer experienced a heartbreaking miscarriage after she contracted a viral infection during her sixth month of pregnancy. “It was horrendous and something I would not wish on my worst enemy,” Allen told The Sun on Sunday. “It’s something that I still haven’t dealt with. I held my child and it was really horrific and painful—one of the hardest things that can happen to a person… It’s not something that you get over.”

Back in 2010, when the singer announced that she was pregnant with her twins with her then-husband Nick Cannon, she also revealed that she had had a miscarriage a couple years before. In the interview with Access Hollywood, they talked about how they found out she lost the pregnancy just as they got ready to tell friends and family the news over the holiday. “It kind of shook us both and took us into a place that was really dark and difficult,” Mariah said. “When that happened… I wasn’t able to even talk to anybody about it. That was not easy.”

When the Facebook founder and his wife, Priscilla Chan, shared the news that they were going to be parents back in July 2015, they also opened up about the fertility struggles they faced: “We’ve been trying to have a child for a couple of years and have had three miscarriages along the way,” Mark wrote. “You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience. Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you—as if you’re defective or did something to cause this. So you struggle on your own. In today’s open and connected world, discussing these issues doesn’t distance us; it brings us together. It creates understanding and tolerance, and it gives us hope.”

When the Big Bang Theory actor first shared the news of her pregnancy with Glamour in July 2017, she accompanied it with the heartbreaking story of her previous pregnancy loss. “The miscarriage I experienced was one of the most profound sorrows I have ever felt in my life. It kick-started a primal depression that lingered in me. The image of our baby on the ultrasound monitor—without movement, without a heartbeat—after we had seen that same little heart healthy and flickering just two weeks prior completely blindsided us and haunts me to this day.” Melissa went on to create a powerful PSA to spread awareness about miscarriages.

While competing on Dancing with the Stars in April 2017, the former Olympic athlete talked about her struggle to get pregnant a second time after an easy first pregnancy. “The first time that you go in and they tell you, ‘Oh there’s no heartbeat,’ it’s devastating,” Kerrigan said. “I felt like a failure.” She revealed that she had had at least six miscarriages in the eight years between the births of her first child, Matthew, and her second child, Brian. “I think about it now and remember we couldn’t come up with a name for Brian,” she said. “I wonder if we probably were afraid to come up with a name because that makes you close and we could lose him.”

Read more: I got pregnant once, so why can’t I again? 

During their ten year marriage, Nicole and Tom Cruise experienced two miscarriages—one early on from an ectopic pregnancy and another toward the end of their marriage. Nicole opened up about her pregnancy loss during a 2018 interview with Tatler: “I know the yearning. That yearning. It’s a huge, aching yearning,” she told the magazine. “And the loss! The loss of a miscarriage is not talked about enough. That’s massive grief to certain women. There’s an enormous amount of pain and an enormous amount of joy on the other side of it.”

In March 2018, the former Vampire Diaries actor posted a picture on Instagram, of her in a hospital bed giving a thumbs up. “I took this photo 10 days ago, as I waited for surgery after my sweet little baby lost its heartbeat. I sent it to my fiancé in the waiting room to show him that I was ok. I wasn’t,” Claire wrote in the caption. “I’ve never felt more broken in my life. I debated sharing this so soon and I’m still frightened about making such a private struggle public, but I’m doing it anyway because it’s important. After my [surgery], I spent hours on the internet searching for women who had been through it. I was desperate to find someone, anyone, who could relate to what I was feeling. Someone to tell me that the depression and hopelessness were normal. That it wasn’t my fault. That I wasn’t broken forever.”

In April 2018, the singer appeared on The Doctors to discuss her experience with endometriosis. While telling her story, she also opened up about how she found out she was pregnant and then lost the pregnancy on stage. “Before I could really figure out what [the] meant to me and what that meant for my future, for my career, for my life, for my relationship, the next thing I knew I was on stage miscarrying in the middle of my concert,” she said. “And the sensation of looking a couple hundred teenagers in the face while you’re bleeding through your clothes and still having to do the show, and realizing in that moment that I never want to make that choice ever again of doing what I love or not being able to because of this disease.”

In an interview with People in December 2010, Ling discussed how her miscarriage shook her. “I felt more like a failure than I’d felt in a very long time,”she said. “We actually [hadn] been trying that long,” she adds. “I don’t know that I took [the] as seriously as I should have because it happened so fast. But then when I heard the doctor say there was no heartbeat it was like bam, like a knife through the heart.”

In an Instagram caption shared in May 2018, the rapper’s wife, Eudoxie Bridges, revealed that she had recently lost a pregnancy while they were trying for a second child. “This year didn’t necessarily start off right for us,” she wrote. “I had a miscarriage and needed to have surgery. It was very easy to complain and self-pity but I refused to let the enemy win. I stayed faithful and prayed up. I spent hours focusing on the many ways the Lord has blessed me. How could I complain when God has blessed me with the opportunity to already experience motherhood? I’m sharing this with you all to remind you to live in gratitude.”