Chrissy Teigen Defends Meghan Markle’s Essay on Miscarriage

She knows a thing or two about receiving hate online

If there’s one thing that Meghan Markle and Chrissy Teigen have in common, it’s that whenever they do anything they receive both a lot of love and a lot of hate. On top of that, both women also recently published essays about losing pregnancies. So, with these shared experiences, it’s no surprise that when Teigen came across a negative tweet regarding Markle’s essay about experiencing a miscarriage, she jumped in to defend her.

On Wednesday, November 25th, the New York Times published an essay by Markle titled, “The Losses We Share”. In her piece, the Duchess of Sussex explains that she experienced a miscarriage over the summer and relates this to the bigger idea that healing — whether from a miscarriage or from a pandemic — starts with the words, “Are you OK?” In her essay, Markle points out that talking about miscarriage is “taboo.” Through her essay, she helps combat that.

As reported by E! News, a tweet about the essay from a Twitter user soon went viral. It reads, “Meghan Markle won’t see the [sic] all of the nasty sh*t you write about her but your friends who have experienced miscarriages and the loss of a baby will.” In response, another Twitter user wrote, “Is anyone really questioning the pain and sheer awfulness of suffering a miscarriage, or are they perhaps criticizing Meghan’s decision to write a 1,000 word op-Ed about herself? What does it add to the resources already available for those who go through a tragedy like this?”

It was this tweet that Teigen responded to. According to E! News, she wrote, “Award for today’s absolute piece of sh*t goes to Marco Giannangeli. Congratulations, piece of sh*t.” The cookbook author then deleted the tweet and posted, “Sorry forgot I’m trying to be nicer lol.”

Teigen shared that she lost her son, Jack, in a September Instagram post. A month later, she published an open letter on Medium in which she details her experience being diagnosed with partial placenta abruption and having to deliver Jack at 20 weeks, when she found out he wouldn’t survive.

Teigen also shares in her letter about why she chose to post photos of herself in the hospital.

“I cannot express how little I care that you hate the photos,” she writes. “How little I care that it’s something you wouldn’t have done. I lived it, I chose to do it, and more than anything, these photos aren’t for anyone but the people who have lived this or are curious enough to wonder what something like this is like. These photos are only for the people who need them.”

Likewise, Markle’s essay is for the people who need it. It doesn’t matter that it’s an op-ed “about herself”, because her experience is one that so many other people can relate to, from Chrissy Teigen to the countless others who read it, too.

Lia Beck
Lia Beck is a writer living in Richmond, Virginia. In addition to Best Life, she has written for Refinery29, Bustle, Hello Giggles, InStyle, and more. Read more