Paloma Faith has opened up about suffering a miscarriage while on the set of the TV series Pennyworth.
The singer, 42, who played Bet Sykes in the Batman prequel series, had been seven weeks pregnant when her miscarriage began while filming a choreographed fight scene for the show.
Faith said she didn’t tell any of the Pennyworth production team she had begun to bleed because she didn’t want to be sent home from filming.
Writing in The Times, Faith recalled how she couldn’t face explaining the miscarriage to any of the Pennyworth crew, so continued working while bleeding and experiencing increased bowel movements.
“I worked. I s***. I bled. I worked. I s***. I bled. Filming a fight scene was actually quite helpful. I had somewhere to put my sadness, physically,” she wrote.
Faith revealed Pennyworth staff were told to escort actors to and from the bathroom so they didn’t “wander off” or “take too many breaks”. On the day of her miscarriage, Faith needed to go to the toilet nine times and was chaperoned by a staff member every single time.
“Here I was, literally sh***ing myself and bleeding heavily on set while performing the fight of my life, with some young twentysomething waiting outside the cubicle every time,” she said.
The “Can’t Rely on You” singer said she still doesn’t know why she chose not to tell staff on the Pennyworth set she was having a medical emergency.
“If I told someone, I knew they would send me home. Everyone is different but I didn’t feel that would be helpful to me and, besides, it was a loss – going home wouldn’t bring it back,” she wrote.
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“Instead, I decided to stay on, stuffing my knickers with rolled-up tissues and asking for someone to pick up some sanitary towels.”
Last month, Faith told The Independent about her breakup with Leyman Lahcine, with whom she shares two young daughters.
“The heartbreak will be forever. You can’t really let go of somebody you’ve got kids with,” she said.
“Some people never speak [to their exes] again, but they’re still very present because you see that person in your kids.
“In my case, it’s even harder because we really like each other a lot and we still love each other. It makes it really confusing. It’s heartbreaking every time we see each other.”
The relationship breakdown, which was confirmed in 2022, is detailed in her new album, The Glorification of Sadness, which the singer said explores the various stages of grief.
Paloma said having two children together is what makes this a “different type of heartbreak album”.
“You look at your kids and you see that person in your kids. Or they come back from visiting them - your partner or ex-partner - and they’re doing their mannerisms or they’ve got opinions that you don’t agree with,” she said.
“It’s even harder, I think in a way, because we really liked each other a lot. We’re really close and we still love each other, and that makes it confusing. That’s really sad. So it’s sort of heartbreaking every time we see each other. It’s just very raw because of the kids.”
