The supermodel Chrissy Teigen opened up to Ellen DeGeneres on Monday about how the pregnancy loss that she and her husband John Legend went through back in September has “transformed” her forever.
People Magazine reported that Teigen and Legend lost their son Jack at twenty weeks gestation in September of last year. DeGeneres praised Teigen as “super brave” for the “raw” photos from the hospital that she shared with her fans after losing Jack.
“Looking at those pictures now, it seems like so long ago. And also, of course, everything was such a blur,” Teigen said. “Even thinking back to it now, I am still in therapy about it and I’m still coming to terms with it. I have maternity clothes, and there are things that I bought for my eighth month and my ninth month. So it’s just hard because he would’ve been born this week, so you look at those things and you have these constant reminders.”
Teigen went on to say that it is “really helpful” that she was “raised in a household that was very open about loss,” as it helps her reflect on how it “can be a beautiful thing.”
“It was a really transformative thing for me and in a way it really saved me, because I don’t think that I would’ve discovered therapy and then sobriety and this path of feeling good about myself and feeling like a new person,” she explained.
Teigen then said that her son Miles Theodore, 2½, and daughter Luna Simone, 4½, are keeping their brother’s memory alive in adorable ways.
“It’s been so beautiful to see my kids, the way they talk about him,” Teigen said. “We’ll be going to the beach or something and they’ll say, ‘Is baby Jack with us right now? Do you think he’s up in the clouds?’ It’s just so beautiful and so sweet.”
“Of course, you don’t ever imagine it happening to you — I think that was the crazy part for me is, ‘I hear these stories about other people. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me,'” she added. “So when it does, you’re just so shocked.”
“And then you think about all the people that go through it in silence and you get really sad for them. Ours was so public, so so many people were so supportive,” Teigen said. “You really gain this incredible amount of empathy. And I really, somehow, think I’m a better person now. And I just have the best support system ever.”
Teigen admitted that she was “perplexed” when it happened to her.
“You really don’t know the meaning of the word ‘unimaginable’ until something like that happens to you,” she said. “And then afterwards, there’s such a spiral of things you could’ve done differently and you start to get really tough on yourself. But what you learn through it about yourself is such a wild, incredible thing, and this week, we’re thinking about [Jack] especially.”
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