10 Celebrity Parents Who Have Opened Up About Pregnancy Loss

A miscarriage can be a life event that still carries shame and stigma for the people who go through it. Some parents feel compelled to keep the experience a secret, often mourning the loss of their baby or even feeling guilty about it. That’s why it's refreshing when celebrity parents, who have social clout and the opportunity to speak publicly about complicated issues, get real about how pregnancy loss has affected their lives. It's an experience many people share and should not carry any stigma. Miscarriages are a common occurrence: Each year, between 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end up in miscarriage.

In recent years, many celebrities have used the spotlight to talk about their own miscarriages and pregnancy losses, which has other (regular) people going through similar situations feel less isolated as they grieve. Here are 10 celebrities who have spoken out about experiencing miscarriage.

Meghan Markle

The mother of two children, Meghan Markle, had a miscarriage in July 2020. It took place after her son Archie had been born in 2019 and before the arrival of daughter Lilibet in 2021. 

Markle penned a poignant essay for The New York Times about how her miscarriage experience unfolded and the emotions she and husband Prince Harry experienced in the aftermath.

"After changing [Archie's] diaper, I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful tune a stark contrast to my sense that something was not right," Markle wrote. "I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second."

Markle added that later, lying in a hospital bed, her eyes wet with tears and holding her husband's hand, she "tried to imagine how we’d heal."

"Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few," added Markle, an emotional journey that resonated with other parents who have gone through the pregnancy loss.

Debbie Matenopoulos

Former co-host of The View Debbie Matenopoulous suffered nine miscarriages during her time working on Hallmark's Home & Family show. Matenopoulos later talked about the challenges she faced during a 2022 episode of the Allison Interviews podcast. 

"I was pregnant for, like, five years straight and no one knew except my stylist that I was pregnant. I would lose them, always,” Matenopoulos said. “The first three were really hard, and then after that I got to a point where I was like, 'Is this a joke? Really?!'"

The television personality and founder of Ikaria Beauty, who gave birth to daughter Alexandra before experiencing those losses, added that she began to feel that the universe was sending her a message.

"My heart was broken so many times that I got to a point where I said, 'Okay, this is what the universe and what God wants, and this is just how it is supposed to be,'" said Matenopoulos.

Michelle Branch

Famous for pop hits like "Breathe" and "Goodbye to You," singer Michelle Branch revealed details about her miscarriage in 2020 via a post on social media. Branch said the tragic experience came during what had been a turbulent time in her life. 

"December decided to really finish us off with a bang! No, literally. A bomb went off in downtown Nashville yesterday. And to further twist a dagger in my heart, I experienced my first miscarriage," she wrote on Instagram.

Branch continued that in between all the crying and binge eating in the aftermath of her miscarriage, she "decided to put on lipstick and a dress. We drank champagne alllll day. Made an incredible meal and sang Christmas songs snuggled up by a roaring fire."

The singer also said that she found comfort leaning on her husband, Patrick Carney, and her sister. Branch and Carney went on to expand their family after the miscarriage. In addition to being the parents of a son, Rhys James, who was born in 2018, in 2022, they welcomed a daughter, Willie Jacquet.

 Savannah Guthrie

Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie is also among those who has experienced the heartbreak of a miscarriage. She shared details in a 2022 Good Housekeeping story. Guthrie said the miscarriage took place after she had given birth to her daughter Vale.

"I stopped even letting myself hope or believe I could [get pregnant], because the years were getting on," Guthrie said as part of the Good Housekeeping interview. "It wasn't that I thought it was impossible; I just thought it wasn't likely." 

The television show host, who also went through IVF treatments, added that she started to think "Maybe it's not meant for me." In 2016, however, she and husband Michael Feldman welcomed a son, Charles Max.

Chrissy Teigen

Model Chrissy Teigen suffered a late pregnancy loss in 2020, losing a son. She later wrote about the trauma on Instagram, as well as in a personal essay for Medium.

A mother of two children at the time, with husband John Legend, Teigen wrote, "We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before. 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."

Teigan documented the experience with photos that she asked her husband and mother to take and explained in her essay that "more than anything, these photos aren’t for anyone but the people who have lived this…These photos are only for the people who need them."

In the years since, Teigen and Legend welcomed two more children, Esti Maxine and Wren Alexander; the latter was born via surrogate. They join siblings Luna Simone and Miles Theodore, making Teigen a parent of four.

Alanis Morissette 

Legendary Canadian-born "You Oughta Know" singer Alanis Morissette shared on a podcast and in an interview with SELF magazine that she had experienced "a bunch of miscarriages." The now-mother of three said they took place after the birth of her son Ever Imre.

“Between Ever and Onyx there were some false starts,” she told SELF. “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.”

Morissette went on to say that she felt “so much grief and fear,” in the wake of her losses. “It was a torturous learning and loss-filled and persevering process.”

Beyonce 

Another legendary musician, Beyonce, revealed in her 2013 HBO documentary Life Is But a Dream, that she experienced a miscarriage before giving birth to her daughter Blue Ivy. 

“About two years ago, I was pregnant for the first time. And I heard the heartbeat, which was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life. I flew back to New York to get my check up—and no heartbeat,” she said of the tragic loss. 

She spoke about the experience in subsequent publications, including a 2020 issue of Elle.

“Success looks different to me now. Having miscarriages taught me that I had to mother myself before I could be a mother to someone else. Then I had Blue, and the quest for my purpose became so much deeper,” she said in the interview.

 Kate Mara

Before welcoming her daughter in 2019, Fantastic Four and House of Cards actress Kate Mara experienced a miscarriage known as a blighted ovum. 

"I didn’t know what that was at the time. I’ve learned what that is," Mara recalled on Dr. Berlin's Informed Pregnancy Podcast, adding that her doctor told her, "'Basically, you’ve miscarried, but it just hasn’t left your body yet.’” 

It was three months before Mara had safely passed all the remaining tissue from the miscarriage. “Everything just took so much time, by the time it was all over. It just dragged out forever,” she said. 

Mara went on to welcome two children with her husband Jamie Bell, a baby girl in 2019 and a baby boy in 2022.

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence experienced two miscarriages, which occurred at different points in her life, which she talked about in an interview with Vogue in 2022, before having her son Cy the same year. "I had a miscarriage alone in Montreal,” she said

In the midst of filming the movie Don't Look Up, she conceived again, and once again miscarried. The second miscarriage required undergoing a D&C to remove the tissue from the uterus.

Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle Union's 2017 book We're Going to Need More Wine was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. In the book Union revealed that she had experienced numerous miscarriages.

“I have had eight or nine miscarriages,” she wrote. “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.”

“For so many women, and not just women in the spotlight, people feel very entitled to know, ‘Do you want kids?'” Union continued. “A lot of people, especially people that have fertility issues, just say ‘no’ because that’s a lot easier than being honest about whatever is actually going on."

Union and her husband Dwayne Wade welcomed a daughter, Kaavia James Wade, via surrogacy in 2018.