Celebrities Who Opened Up About Having Abortions

Danielle Brooks

Oscar-nominated actress Danielle Brooks revealed on July 2025 in the course of the Pregnant Pause podcast that she needed to endure an abortion.

“It was actually arduous [and] very, very troublesome to really have an abortion. It was not what I wished, however there was no approach round it,” she mentioned, revealing it was resulting from one of many medicines she was taking on the time.

She added, “I feel it’s essential to share [and] I’ve been holding that for years now, however I feel there comes a time the place it’s, like, ‘You understand what? I wish to [share] this as a result of I do know that there’s some lady on the market [who] could be experiencing the identical factor.”

Kerry Washington

In her 2023 memoir, Thicker Than Water, Kerry Washington opened up about having an abortion  in her 20s. Per People, Washington gave medical doctors a faux identify to guard her privateness, as her profession was simply taking off on the time because of roles in Save the Final Dance and She Hate Me. She shared that she felt some disgrace and hypocrisy over the process, on condition that she’d labored as a sexual well being educator as an adolescent.

“I struggled lots to start with with whether or not or to not embody my abortion story,” Washington instructed Individuals. “At first I wasn’t actually certain the way it match into this story of my life. However I began to really feel prefer it was actually essential for me to share this.” Washington additionally wished to open up about her story as a result of the fitting to abortion is below assault. “It’s simply so essential to me that abortion will not be a foul phrase, and that my abortion will not be one other factor on the listing of issues that I’m ashamed of,” she mentioned, including, “We’re at a second the place it’s actually essential to be telling the reality about our reproductive selections as a result of a few of these selections are being stripped away from us.”

Paris Hilton

In a latest interview with Glamour UK, Paris Hilton shared she had an abortion in her early 20s, as a result of she “was not prepared for” all that got here with being pregnant and parenthood at such a younger age

“This was additionally one thing that I didn’t wish to speak about as a result of there was a lot disgrace round that,” Hilton mentioned. “I used to be a child and I used to be not prepared for that.”

She additionally opened up about about her emotions on the over-turn of Roe v Wade: “I feel it will be important [to speak out]. There’s simply a lot politics round it and all that, however it’s a girl’s physique… Why ought to there be a legislation primarily based on that? It’s your physique, your selection and I actually consider in that.”

Phoebe Bridgers

Following information of the leaked opinion that, if finalized, would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade courtroom resolution, singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers shared by way of Twitter that whereas on tour in 2021, she had a secure, efficient medicine abortion because of Deliberate Parenthood. 

“I had an abortion in October of final yr whereas I used to be on tour. I went to Deliberate Parenthood the place they gave me the abortion capsule,” Bridgers shared. “It was straightforward. Everybody deserves that type of entry. “

Stevie Nicks

Shortly after the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court docket, Stevie Nicks spoke to The Guardian about her worry for the state of abortion entry and what it meant that she might safely terminate her personal being pregnant in 1979, simply two years after “Rumours”.

“If I had not had that abortion, I’m fairly certain there would have been no Fleetwood Mac,” Nicks mentioned. “There’s simply no approach that I might have had a toddler then, working as arduous as we labored consistently. And there have been quite a lot of medicine… I might have needed to stroll away.” 

Nicks felt that the aim Fleetwood Mac was fulfilling was larger than having youngsters. “I knew that the music we have been going to convey to the world was going to heal so many individuals’s hearts and make folks so blissful. And I believed: You understand what? That’s actually essential,” she mentioned. “There’s not one other band on this planet that has two lead girls singers, two lead girls writers. That was my world’s mission.”

Sally Discipline

Sally Discipline had an abortion earlier than Roe v. Wade was handed, and known as the expertise “traumatic” in an Instagram video forward of the 2024 election. Discipline defined that she was simply 17 years previous on the time and felt disgrace when she realized she was pregnant. “I had no selections in my life, I didn’t have quite a lot of household assist or funds,” mentioned Discipline, who added that she’d simply graduated from highschool on the time and was nonetheless determining what she wished to do along with her life.

Finally, a physician who was a pal of her household drove Discipline to Tijuana, Mexico to get the process finished. Discipline “had no anesthetic” in the course of the process and mentioned she was molested throughout it as nicely, calling the expertise “past hideous and life-altering.” She additionally drew parallels to “issues girls are going by now,” after the Dobbs resolution took away the federal proper to abortion. “They’re attempting to get to a different state, they don’t have the cash, they don’t have the means,” Discipline mentioned. “And it’s past, how one can return to that and do this to our little women and our younger girls, and never have respect and regard for his or her well being and their very own selections about whether or not they really feel they’re capable of give delivery to a toddler.”

Ashley Judd

Actress Ashley Judd was one of many first folks to go on document along with her allegation against Harvey Weinstein, has spoken on the Ladies’s March, and is a passionate activist for girls’s rights and the concept that “democracy begins with our pores and skin.” In 2019, Judd addressed Georgia’s fetal heartbeat invoice and the way, as a three-time rape survivor, secure abortion entry was life-changing her her. 

“One of many occasions that I used to be raped,” Judd shared, “there was conception. And I’m very grateful I used to be capable of entry secure and authorized abortion. As a result of the rapist, who’s a Kentuckian… has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I might’ve needed to co-parent with my rapist.”

Jameela Jamil

Jameela Jamil first opened up about her abortion in 2019 when a law was handed in Georgia making the process unlawful as quickly as a heartbeat could be detected (which could be as early as six weeks into being pregnant). In a since-deleted tweet, she known as the legislation “upsetting, inhumane, and blatantly demonstrative of a hatred of girls, a disregard for our rights, our bodies, psychological well being, and primarily a punishment for rape victims.”

Jamil went on to share her personal story. “I had an abortion after I was younger, and it was one of the best resolution I’ve ever made,” she wrote. “Each for me, and for the child I didn’t need, and wasn’t prepared for, emotionally, psychologically and financially.”

Individuals had lots to say about The Good Place actor’s stance on reproductive rights. In a separate tweet, Jamil added: “Name me no matter you want. I’m not sorry about my abortion. Contraception failed me and I did what was greatest for my psychological and bodily well being on the time. And I might do it once more if I needed to. I don’t really feel at ALL ashamed, and in case you had one too, for any cause, neither do you have to.”

Busy Philipps

Busy Philipps has been an outspoken advocate for abortion entry – even testifying earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee about why she obtained an abortion at age 15 in Arizona, the place current state laws make it way more troublesome to get entry to that well being care.  

“I’m so unhappy that we’ve got to take a seat right here in entrance of a row of politicians and provides deeply private statements,” Philipps mentioned in her testimony final yr. “As a result of the ‘why’ doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. I’m a human being that deserves autonomy on this nation that calls itself free, and selections {that a} human being makes about their very own our bodies shouldn’t be legislated by strangers who can’t presumably know or perceive every particular person’s circumstances or beliefs.”

The actress has additionally opened up about abortion on her late-night talk show and in her guide, This Will Solely Harm a Little, and inspired girls to share their tales on Twitter utilizing the #YouKnowMe hashtag.

Chrissy Teigen

Chrissy Teigen went by what she initially thought was a miscarriage in 2020, when she misplaced her son Jack after experiencing being pregnant issues. It wasn’t till she was speaking along with her husband, John Legend, after the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, that he instructed her she’d truly undergone a life-saving abortion.

“I by no means skilled any ache in it so I by no means considered it as being something aside from a miscarriage,” Teigen defined in an October 2024 speech in Arizona to assist a right-to-abortion initiative, per CNN. “We hear the phrase abortion, we expect there’s some type of ache with it… nowhere in these days within the hospital getting blood transfusions did I feel that I used to be at risk of shedding this child as a result of I used to be in no ache.”

Placing phrases to the expertise and sharing it brazenly is a approach for Teigen to battle the “stigma across the phrase ‘abortion,’” she mentioned. “No one desires to say abortion … I didn’t even know I had one. And that was so embarrassing to confess in entrance of all the world.”

Amber Tamblyn

Final yr, Amber Tamblyn joined the #YouKnowMe dialog on-line, tweeting, “In 2012, I had an abortion. It was one of many hardest selections I’ve ever needed to make. I nonetheless give it some thought to today. However these truths don’t make me remorse my resolution. It was the fitting selection for me, at the moment in my life. I’ve not a single doubt about this.”

The actress opened up after Alabama lawmakers voted to outlaw being pregnant termination and threaten medical doctors with a 99-year jail sentence in the event that they ignore the laws, proper after state officers in Georgia signed the fetal heartbeat invoice.

Minka Kelly

After Alabama lawkmakers successfully banned abortions in 2019, actress Minka Kelly shared her #YouKnowMe story in a prolonged publish on Instagram, explaining how an abortion saved her from a lifetime of battle.

“For a child to’ve been born to 2 folks — too younger and fully sick geared up — with no means or assist from household, would have resulted in a toddler born into an pointless world of battle. Having a child at the moment would have solely perpetuated the cycle of poverty, chaos and dysfunction I used to be born into,” she wrote. 

Kelly additionally famous that denying abortion entry ignores what occurs to the ladies carrying these youngsters, and does nothing to assist moms after the youngsters are born.

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj obtained private about her abortion in 2014, shortly after the discharge of her album The Pinkprint.

“I believed I used to be going to die,” she instructed Rolling Stone of the time she discovered she was pregnant in highschool. “I used to be an adolescent. It was the toughest factor I’d ever gone by.” Although the singer famous the choice has “haunted” her all her life, she additionally felt it was the fitting factor to do. “It’d be contradictory if mentioned I wasn’t pro-choice. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have something to supply a toddler.”

Tess Holliday

Whereas sharing her #YouKnowMe story on Instagram, mannequin Tess Holliday spoke to the truth that if she have been nonetheless dwelling within the South in the present day, she may not have been capable of have the abortion she final did. “My psychological well being couldn’t deal with being pregnant once more,” she wrote. “I made one of the best resolution for ME & finally my household. It wasn’t the ‘straightforward factor to do’, it was excruciating on many ranges, however crucial. Do I remorse it or query my selection? By no means.”

Although Holliday particularly reacted to the ban on abortions in Alabama, she famous that the problem is related to everybody; the frequent false impression that solely cis, heterosexual girls can get pregnant has made entry to abortions disproportionately troublesome for queer, trans and non-binary of us.

Lisa Marie Presley

In her memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley revealed she had an abortion that she finally regretted, after getting pregnant with then-partner Danny Keough. In excerpts shared in People, Presley wrote that she was “sloppy” when it got here to being pregnant prevention and didn’t use contraception, and he or she and Keough have been uncertain what to do when she obtained pregnant.

Presley mentioned she was “devastated” after the abortion, and that her relationship with Keough “fell aside” quickly after. “I couldn’t dwell with myself,” Presley defined. However, due to her guilt, Presley later “deliberate and plotted and schemed” to get pregnant by Keough once more, whether or not “he wished to be part of it or not. I felt that I needed to redeem, to make amends, as a result of I nonetheless couldn’t consider I had had an abortion,” she wrote. They finally had two youngsters collectively, Riley Keough and Benjamin Storm.

Tara Lipinski

Tara Lipinski has been open about her fertility struggles, and in 2024, she revealed that her journey to motherhood entails 4 surgical abortions. In an essay for Allure, Lipinski recalled experiencing “utter disbelief and heartbreak” when she realized her first being pregnant wasn’t viable, and her physician suggestions she have a D&C (dilation and curettage process, also called a surgical abortion). “Carrying an unviable being pregnant needs to be probably the most disturbing experiences,” Lipinski wrote. “You are feeling pregnant… however as an alternative of figuring out there’s a light-weight on the finish of the tunnel, {that a} child will come from all this ache, you’re compelled to take a seat and wait [for an abortion].”

Lipinski repeated that have three extra occasions, explaining she sacrificed her psychological and bodily well being whereas struggling to get pregnant and underwent “traumatic” experiences adopted lastly by a way of “aid” after her ultimate abortion. “Even when I couldn’t have the child that I so desperately wished, I knew that my well being was in good palms and that I might be on the highway to restoration quickly, even when my journey by the grief would by no means totally heal,” she wrote.

Lipinski additionally used the experiences to take a stand for reproductive rights. “With out my abortions, and the required medical care that I required, I don’t know if I might be right here in the present day,” the Olympian wrote. “… Ladies deserve the medical entry that they need, and wish.”

Maya Henry

Former mannequin Maya Henry’s debut novel, Wanting Ahead, options an abortion scene that’s “very comparable” to at least one Henry went by in actual life, she instructed People in Could 2024. “If it have been as much as me, I wouldn’t have finished it,” Henry mentioned of her abortion. “However then additionally, if I have been to have made a special resolution, then I might’ve misplaced the individual that I cherished. There have been positively troublesome conversations about it.” 

Henry instructed the outlet that she skilled issues in the course of the abortion and needed to go to the hospital, expressing frustration that her expertise was downplayed beforehand. “It was very lonely, having these males inform you, ‘Oh, it’s going to really feel like a heavy interval, it’s not going to be that painful, it’s going to be straightforward.’ However I’m like, you’ve by no means even gone by something like [this], so how would you already know to inform me?” Henry defined — which was why she determined to jot down about it. “I’ve seen so many individuals on-line speak about taking the abortion capsule and it was essentially the most painful factor for them. It’s simply thoughts boggling to me that you could possibly inform a girl how they’re going to really feel.”