Chrissy Teigen and John Legend will rarely earn praise from conservative commentators outside of the former’s culinary brand and the latter’s undeniable musical talent. Today they deserve nothing less than our praise, and from women, our gratitude. The model and musician decided to share the tragedy of their loss of their unborn son, Jack, who was likely into his second trimester of gestation.
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) October 1, 2020
Driving home from the hospital with no baby. How can this be real.
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) October 1, 2020
Teigen and Legend had zero obligation to share their story with the world. Although both are prolific Twitter pundits and fairly public online, they could have remained mum on the miscarriage and mourn privately while the tabloid class filed away a quiet news item. But the famous couple delivered a service to the world, illustrating the oft-ignored tragedy that is a miscarriage, which dooms roughly half of all fertilized pregnancies and between 10% and 15% of known pregnancies.
Similar to the whole #MeToo phenomenon, women are hesitant to go public with private tragedies such as fertility struggles or miscarriages. Just as superstars like Rose McGowan going public with their rapes empowered entire industries of less privileged women to come forward, a beautiful model and her EGOT husband sharing their story with the world will help countless women stop internalizing lost pregnancies and fertility battles as personal failures. If it can happen to the rich and famous, of course you cannot blame yourself if it happens to you.
Already there are vicious and godless trolls trying to dunk on Teigen and Legend for their politics, arguing that they’re wrong to post photos of their only moments with baby Jack. Not only are the critics evil, they are wrong. Teigen and Legend are humanizing a process for the hundreds of millions of women (and men, for that matter) who have suffered in silence for millennia.
You can detest their politics all you want, but a prayer and a thank you are owed to the couple, especially the woman who used her fame for the good of making millions of women feel less alone.
