Anne Hathaway, 41, has shared a harrowing tale in a recent interview, explaining that she had to act out giving birth every night on stage while personally going through a miscarriage.
The actress courageously recounted the personal chapter in her life, and how she continued to act in the off-Broadway production Grounded while her own life echoed a much more heart-breaking story.
“The first time [being pregnant] didn’t work out for me,” Hathaway said. “I was doing a play and I had to give birth onstage every night.”
Naturally, Hathaway looked to her friends as an emotional outlet during this time, saying that she was honest with them about how she was feeling so she could continue to act convincingly onstage.
“It was too much to keep it in when I was onstage pretending everything was fine,” she said. “I had to keep it real otherwise.”
Hathaway experienced the miscarriage in 2015. Since then, she has acknowledged her conception struggles online and aimed to be a support to other women who don’t have an easy journey to parenthood.
“All kidding aside, for everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies. Sending you extra love,” she shared on Instagram in 2019.
For Hathaway, it was important to talk about miscarriage, infertility and conception issues, in an effort to be authentic with her fans when so much of what we see online is airbrushed and idealized.
“Given the pain I felt while trying to get pregnant, it would’ve felt disingenuous to post something all the way happy when I know the story is much more nuanced than that for everyone,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to feel ashamed of something that seemed to me statistically to actually be quite normal.”
According to Miscarriage Australia, the rate of miscarriage in pregnancies could be as high as 1 in 4, so it is important to talk about and normalise this experience, which is so often battled alone.
Hathaway is now mother to two young sons, Jonathan Rosebanks Shulman and Jack Shulman with husband Adam Shulman, who she married in 2012.
Anybody seeking support can visit pinkelephantssupport.com to access free resources, downloadable fact sheets or to apply for assistance from a Peer Support Ambassador.
