Chrissy Teigen says she had an abortion in 2020 "to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance"

Chrissy Teigen said this week that she has come to understand that the miscarriage she said she had in 2020 was instead an abortion. Teigen said it took her over a year to realize she'd had an abortion, which she said was necessary to "save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance." 

"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," she said at an event in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn't either without any medical intervention." 

"Let's just call it what it was: It was an abortion," she said, according to the outlet. "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 said she realized she'd had an abortion when she and her husband, John Legend, were discussing the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade earlier this year, the outlet reported. She said that after she expressed sympathy toward people who have had an abortion, Legend helped her realize she'd gone through the same thing. 

"I fell silent, feeling weird that I hadn't made sense of it that way," Teigen said, according to the outlet. "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."

Teigen retweeted The Hollywood Reporter's article on Friday, writing, "I told you all we had a miscarriage because I thought that was what it was. But it was an abortion, and we were heartbroken and grateful all at once. It just took me over a year to realize it." 

Teigen first announced the loss of her unborn child, who was to be named Jack, in an emotional Instagram post in September 2020. 

"We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we've never felt before," Teigen wrote at the time. 

In a Medium essay that October, Teigen said she had been told she had to induce the delivery of her 20-week old son after she suffered a partial placenta abruption — but it soon became clear that the child would not survive. 

"After a couple nights at the hospital, my doctor told me exactly what I knew was coming — it was time to say goodbye. He just wouldn't survive this, and if it went on any longer, I might not either," she wrote. 

At the time, Teigen and Legend had two children, Luna and Miles. The couple announced this August that they are expecting another child.

"The last few years have been a blur of emotions to say the least, but joy has filled our home and hearts again," Teigen said when announcing her pregnancy on Instagram. "1 billion shots later (in the leg lately, as u can see!) we have another on the way. Every appointment I've said to myself, 'ok if it's healthy today I'll announce' but then I breathe a sigh of relief to hear a heartbeat and decide I'm just too nervous still."

"I don't think I'll ever walk out of an appointment with more excitement than nerves but so far, everything is perfect and beautiful and I'm feeling hopeful and amazing," she wrote. 

This article has been corrected to note that it happened at 20 weeks.

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• Abortion