Chrissy Teigen got candid on Thursday about the loss of her baby, Jack, in 2020. The model and television personality revealed that what she and husband John Legend publicized as a miscarriage of their third child, was actually an abortion to save Teigen’s life when they found out the baby would not make it to term. The reveal, though, came as just as much a surprise to Teigen herself.
Speaking at social impact agency Propper Daley’s “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” summit, Teigen said, “Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack, John and my third child, I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions. It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention.” She added, “Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion. An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never, ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago.”
Teigen, who currently raises daughter Luna, 6, and son Miles, 4, with Legend, is currently pregnant. She said that the revelation came after Roe v. Wade was overturned earlier this summer and she was expressing empathy for people who had to make the difficult decision to abort. She says it was her husband who helped her realize that she was one of those people. She said of the moment of clarity, “I fell silent, feeling weird that I hadn’t made sense of it that way. I told the world we had a miscarriage, the world agreed we had a miscarriage, all the headlines said it was a miscarriage. And I became really frustrated that I didn’t, in the first place, say what it was, and I felt silly that it had taken me over a year to actually understand that we had had an abortion.”
Stories like these must get shared to raise awareness about the importance of access to reproductive care. As harmful laws now sweep through the nation outlawing abortion in certain states — even when the health of the mother is at risk — humanizing what it looks like to make those heartbreaking decisions is essential in fighting back. Teigen’s portion of the summit was called “We Made That Choice,” an invite-only talk held at Beverly Hills’ The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the day’s talks ranged in topics from “intellectual humility, mental health, social and economic division, criminal justice, reproductive rights, climate change, responsible tech and more,” and were aimed to encourage more authentic storylines onscreen.
