Celebrity Moms Share Experiences With Postpartum Depression, Anxiety

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Celebrity Moms Sharing Their Postpartum Depression and Anxiety Experiences: Reese Witherspoon and More

Sharing their stories. Reese Witherspoon, Behati Prinsloo and more celebrity moms have spoken openly about their postpartum depression.

The Big Little Lies alum had “a different experience” after each of her children’s births, she told Jameela Jamil in April 2020. “[With] one kid, I had kind of mild postpartum, and [with] one kid, I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all,” the actress said during an episode of Jamil’s “I Weigh” podcast. “And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all.”

The Whiskey in a Teacup author shares daughter Ava and son Deacon with her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe, as well as son Tennessee with her husbannd, Jim Toth. After she stopped nursing her little ones, she went through “hormonal roller-coasters.”

Witherspoon explained at the time: “No one explained that to me. I was 23 years old when I had my first baby and nobody explained to me that when you wean a baby, your hormones go into the toilet. I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my whole life. It was scary.”

Without “guidance or help,” the Oscar winner “white-knuckled” her way back to herself despite “reaching out to [her] doctors for answers.”

The Little Fires Everywhere star said, “I think hormones are so understudied and not understood. … There just isn’t enough research about what happens to women’s bodies and the hormonal shifts that we have aren’t taken as seriously as I think they should be.”

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As for Prinsloo, the Victoria’s Secret Angel received help from her husband, Adam Levine, while battling PPD.

“My husband was so incredibly supportive and always got me out of it,” the mother of two said on a June 2019 Today appearance. “I think it’s very normal, though, as a young mom and a new mom to feel helpless and to feel overly emotional, you know.”

The model added, “I think I got lucky not to have it to an extreme case, but you can see yourself spiraling.”

Keep scrolling for details on how other celebrity mothers have overcome their PPD, from Brooke Shields to Shay Mitchell.

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Mena Suvari

The American Beauty star opened up about feeling off following the April 2021 birth of her son Christopher, revealing that she still battles postpartum depression “every day.”

“I remember sitting on our balcony saying, ‘I have to get out of the house. I have to get out of the house.’ My husband, [Michael Hope], he said, ‘You can go. You can go for a walk,’ and I was like, ‘But I don’t think I [can],'” Suvari told Rachel Bilson during her November 2022 episode of the “Broad Ideas” podcast. “I was going crazy. I was like, ‘I have to do something for myself but I can’t go.’ I had to learn [to let go].”

While the Loser actress admitted that being away from her little one can still be a “struggle,” she’s learned that “I don’t need to be in [my son’s] face 24/7 to raise a good being.”

Suvari also got candid about figuring out how to ease the guilt after needing an emergency C-section. (She and Hope planned for a natural at-home birth.)

“I still suffer from that, and I’m entitled to those emotions,” she explained. “We as mothers are entitled to those emotions and just because I have a beautiful baby who’s perfectly healthy, my husband’s wonderful and we made it out of the hospital, I still feel like I’m allowed to hold some space for being sad over not having that birth.”

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Carey Mulligan

The actress recalled struggling after giving birth to daughter Evelyn in October 2015, telling Vanity Fair that she was nearly unable to do press for her movie Suffragette. “It was either cancel the whole thing or just get on and do it,” she told Vanity Fair in October 2022. “And that — and a combination of lots of other things, and help and support from everyone around me — was my light.”

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Ashley Iaconetti

When asked about her postpartum anxiety in an April 2022 Instagram Story Q&A, the Bachelor in Paradise alum wrote that her intrusive thoughts “got worse” after her son Dawson’s birth. “For the first few weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘My life is perfect, when is someone in my family going to die? It’s got to happen soon because I’ve got it too good,'” she explained. “I also got pretty OCD at night checking the security of his Snow Sack a ton of times. … I’m always thinking of him.”

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Jordan Pruitt

“I remember my PP depression/anxiety kicked in around 6ish months,” the Voice alum wrote via Instagram in March 2022. “I couldn’t smile and didn’t know why. I didn’t sleep a lot thinking [my daughter] could possibly suffocate in the middle of the night. Motherhood is no joke, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

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Janet Von Schmeling

When an Instagram user asked Drake Bell’s wife whether she was “on pills” in a March 2022 Instagram Live, the Florida native replied, “I’m not on pills. I should be actually because I have really bad postpartum. But I’m not. Thanks for your concern.”

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Olivia Munn

“My hips still feel wonky from pushing out a human being, my postpartum anxiety is still here (and horrible), but I got myself up and took my first capoeira lesson today,” the actress told her Instagram followers in March 2022, nearly four months after welcoming son Malcolm. “Getting back to martial arts made me feel a little more like myself. Hope I can keep it up.”

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Jade Roper

“I was fighting a dark depression for the first six months after Brooks was born and no one would have known it,” the Bachelor in Paradise alum told her Instagram followers in January 2021. “I’m fumbling through, learning as I go and leaning in as I get to know my baby and the new versions of my children and husband as they evolve and adapt and grow as well. I guess I share the imperfect moments in hopes of reaching across a social platform and sparking a human connection.”

The Bachelor alum “went back to work almost immediately” after having son Brooks in July 2019, exclusively telling Us two years later that she only waited a couple of days before returning to social media. “Because his birth was so crazy, everybody wanted to talk to me. And I remember being like, ‘OK, I guess this is my job. This is what provides for my family. I guess I have to just do this,'” Roper explained in March 2022. “But I had postpartum depression after him, and I really think a lot of that pressure of feeling like I had to go back to work contributed to it.”

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Rachel Platten

The singer experienced an “incredibly painful battle with [her] mental health” after welcoming daughter Sophie in September 2021, she wrote via Instagram in March 2022. Platten explained, “The postpartum period … [included] long days that felt impossible and tears that wouldn’t stop coming and nights that felt never ending when my poor scared body wouldn’t let me sleep. I tried every tool possible, even ones I was previously scared of, and finally now I’m feeling consistent joy, ease, power and real hope again. Actually … it’s not even hope, it’s bigger. It’s a KNOWING. I know my strength. I know my worth. I know who I am and I love myself.”

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Lauren Burnham

“This time around has been pretty difficult if I’m being honest,” the Bachelor alum wrote via Instagram Stories in January 2022 of her postpartum journey. “I’ve experienced some PPD and I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to divide my time and energy. I’m starting to feel a lot better though.”

The Virginia native exclusively told Us in February 2022 that she experienced “some struggles” with “intense” postpartum depression after welcoming Senna and Lux. “I think my hormones were just so out of whack, after having the twins,” Burnham explained. “They were, like, up here and then came crashing down really quickly. So it was hard for me to handle things that normally would be easy for me to handle.”

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Jamie Chung

“I was so resentful, and I had anxiety and I was angry,” Chung told Ashley Graham of her “crazy” postpartum depression in December 2021. “I was going through it. So I think because I was pretty open to my family and friends [through] this transition period and I was so upset, they were walking on eggshells. They didn’t give me any unsolicited advice.”

The following month, the Dexter: New Blood star exclusively told Us about her “real” postpartum depression experience, saying, “It rocks your world having kids. This transition sometimes leads to anxiety, depression, angst, resentment, the whole spectrum of feelings. … You work on that by making sure that you give yourself time, you are kind to yourself and gentle to your partner as well.”

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Jamie Otis

The Married at First Sight alum was “scared of looking weak” after being diagnosed with postpartum depression in July 2020, writing via Instagram: “When I think of the person I want to be, it isn’t a depressed Debbie-downer. I want to be the happy one always encouraging others and making them smile.⁣ When I think of the kind of MOM I want to be, I want to be the attentive one who never tires of getting down and playing with my kiddos.⁣”

While struggling with postpartum depression, Otis didn’t feel like it was “fair” to try for another baby, she exclusively told Us Weekly in December 2021. “If your brain isn’t working properly, there should be no shame taking care of it before you put more strain on it. So I did put trying to conceive [on the back burner],” she explained.

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Christine Quinn

The Selling Sunset star had a difficult labor in May 2021 when both her and baby Christian’s lives were in danger. They both survived the emergency C-section, but Quinn revealed that she struggled with her mental health after giving birth.

“I was pregnant on top of dealing with postpartum depression,” Quinn, who shares her son with husband Christian Richard, told ET Canada in December 2021. “I did the best that I could with the emotions that I was dealing with at the time and that I’m still dealing with now.”

Aside from the drama of Selling Sunset season 4, Quinn also had trouble with online bullies. “The problem that I was facing [was] everyone was saying, ‘Oh, well, you know, she’s so thin. She’s so this. She’s so that.’ But inside you know, I was dealing with PTSD,” she explained at the time.

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Lala Kent

The Vanderpump Rules star suffered from “heavy” prenatal depression while pregnant with daughter Ocean and “felt guilty” about it, she revealed in a November 2021 “Give Them Lala” podcast episode. “I got into this weird headspace. Luckily, it subsided.” While she was occasionally “a little down” during her postpartum journey, Kent noted that her placenta pills “absolutely helped.”

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Rachel Platten

“I have postpartum anxiety again,” the singer told her Instagram followers in October 2021. “This [is a] daily mental rollercoaster that I’m on. A wave of irrational worry or fear or depression comes and it can knock me over if i don’t use all of my tools: compassion for myself is the biggest. But It also takes breath work, meditation, exercise, acupuncture medication (oh we’ll talk about this one later!!), therapy, tremendous support and vulnerability and courage to ride these waves.”

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Ayesha Curry

“I can say without a shadow of a doubt [that] I had postpartum depression,” the Food Network personality said during an October 2021 “Because Life” podcast episode of welcoming daughter Ryan in October 2021. “But I didn’t know what that was at that time. It’s not anything we talked about with our moms. It was this invisible thing. They didn’t experience that? I don’t know. But it was pretty bad when I look back at it.”

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Kaitlynn Carter

The Hills: New Beginnings star described her prenatal depression in October 2021, one month after welcoming son Rowan. “It was really bizarre and very confusing and upsetting to me because I had wanted a baby for so long,” Carter said during a “Skinny Confidential Him & Her” podcast episode. “The hormones just sent me into this downward spiral. … The best way I can describe it is everything in the world turned to black and white and there was nothing that could really get me to feel. I felt like I had no emotions. Like, my personality disappeared. The scariest part for me was not knowing how long that was going to last. … For me, at 11 weeks exactly, it just went away, and I felt so much more normal.”

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Lauren Bushnell

The Bachelor alum called parenting “the hardest thing” she has ever done in a September 2021 Instagram post, writing, “Balancing work, a 3-month-old, [postpartum] anxiety and hormones, lack of sleep and finding time for me has been a challenge. I had a full-blown panic attack the other night and drove myself to the fire station thinking I was having an allergic reaction and my throat was closing [and my] legs were numb. … I’m heading to the doctor tomorrow to check a couple things and discuss my anxiety that has been through the roof.”

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Brandi Rhodes

“I tried to fight it or tell myself, ‘Hey, this isn’t real stuff happening, calm down,’ and recently, I finally just gave in and said, ‘You know what? I have postpartum depression for sure,” the Rhodes to the Top star exclusively told Us in September 2021, two months after giving birth to daughter Liberty. “I need to be cognizant of it. I need to reach out when I need help. I just need to take everything one day at a time. … It’s good to just talk about things. There’s no shame in things changing in your life, and it happens.”

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Alanis Morissette

In October 2019, the singer battled PPD for the third time, but had set herself up “to win.” She explained in a blog post: “Support. Food. Friends. Sun. Bio-identical hormones and SSRI’s at the ready. Some parts of the care-prep have been a godsend, and well-planned. But for all of this preparation, PPD is still a sneaky monkey with a machete working its way through my psyche and body and days and thoughts and bloodwork levels.”

The songwriter’s postpartum depression got “progressively worse” with each child, she told Today Parents in August 2021. Morissette was “finally on the other side of it” two years after welcoming son Winter.

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Sadie Robertson

The Duck Dynasty alum reflected on postpartum anxiety “creeping up” in a July 2021 “Whoa! That’s Good” podcast episode. “I didn’t even realize that those thoughts throughout the day were making me jittery, were making me have all these feelings of anxiety and were making my chest feel super tight, like, I couldn’t breathe,” she explained at the time. “I didn’t understand how I could be so happy and so joyful, yet also experience so much fear. I realized that you don’t have to choose just one of those feelings.”

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Katie Lowes

While the Scandal alum had previously discussed postpartum depression with friends and family members, it was a “whole other thing” to battle it herself, she wrote via Instagram in May 2021. Lowes thanked her loved ones for “helping [her] through.”

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Shenae Grimes-Beech

“Given my anxiety, I was prepared for postpartum depression, but nope, prenatal depression got me and hit me like a ton of bricks,” the pregnant 90210 alum told The Bump in May 2021. “It was gone by the second trimester both times. But this time, I think it actually kicked in even before I realized I was pregnant. And it actually surprised me both times.”

The actress didn’t want other moms to be “alone in this feeling,” explaining, “I think the guilt associated with both prenatal and postpartum is what leaves these things untreated, and leaves women feeling completely alone and isolated in their feelings.”

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Danielle Brooks

“I gained a lot of weight during my pregnancy, and I think I did go through postpartum depression,” the Orange Is the New Black alum told Parents magazine in April 2021. “I was trying to stay positive when it felt like my whole world had flipped upside down. Creating a human takes a toll on women’s bodies. Sometimes we don’t give ourselves enough love or patience about that. You may think you’re going to bounce back miraculously, but that’s not true for a lot of people. I’m one of them. While I want to return to my pre-baby size, at the same time, I want to love this skin that I’m in now.”

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Bekah Martinez

“I learned from experience that becoming a mom can definitely take a toll on your wellbeing, especially during the postpartum period,” the Bachelor alum told Parents Latina magazine in March 2021. “In my case, I started having dark thoughts, obsessing about the dangers of the world and the vulnerability of my own children. All this was compounded by the severe sleep deprivation from having two babies just 16 months apart. It was excruciating and got better only once I became open to therapy.”

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Nikki Bella

“I didn’t realize at week seven, you kind of come out of your baby blues and … go two different paths,” the reality star said during a “Total Bellas Podcast” episode in September 2020. “You go the path of being healthy or you go down the path of being depressed, and that depression path can be a really dark, deep hole. I was starting to feel invisible. … It just started to build up. Being alone with [my son], Matteo, and just feeling lonely and not loved and invisible.”

In a January 2021 episode of Total Bellas, Nikki said that she was approaching a “massive breakdown” and feeling jealous of her fiancé Artem Chigvintsev‘s Dancing With the Stars partnership with Kaitlyn Bristowe. “It’s not about her and him,” she explained. “Like, I don’t have a fear of Artem going off. That’s not it. It’s wanting what she’s getting from him. Can he come home and laugh with me? Can he come home and ask me how I’m doing? Like, I want to feel wanted and sexy.”

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Maren Morris

“I’m kind of coming through the tunnel now,” the country singer said of her postpartum depression battle during a September 2020 CBS This Morning appearance. “I feel back to normal. Fortunately, I was able to do phone therapy during the [coronavirus] pandemic. … And [I have] people that love me around me that are like, ‘Hey, if you’re drowning right now, there’s help.’”

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Loren Brovarnik

“I’ve experienced some postpartum depression and I’ve struggled with judgment and people sharing unsolicited advice,” the 90 Day Fiancé star captioned a May 2020 Instagram post after welcoming her son, Shai. “I’ve been a nervous nelly.”

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Reese Witherspoon

“I have deep compassion for women who are going through that,” the Golden Globe winner told Jamil. “Postpartum is very real.”

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Amber Portwood

“It was more than medications,” the Teen Mom OG star told Us exclusively in March 2020 of her PPD recovery. “It was a mindset that I had to change.”

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Shay Mitchell

“As long as I can remember, I’ve heard about postpartum depression,” the Pretty Little Liars alum told Hatchland in October 2019. “However, to be depressed at the beginning came as a shock. The isolation and anxiety I experienced was crippling. I thought I was going out of my mind and questioned why nobody ever talked to me about this phase.”

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Behati Prinsloo

“It was difficult to get back into normal life,” the model told PorterEdit in January 2019 of her first daughter Dusty’s birth. “After the second one, [Gio], everything felt so much easier — it was easier for me to work out. … Breast-feeding was easier.”

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Cardi B

In February 2019, the rapper told Harper’s Bazaar that PPD hit her “out of nowhere.” She explained, “I thought I was going to avoid it. When I gave birth, the doctor told me about postpartum, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m doing good right now, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’”

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Ivanka Trump

“With each of my three children I had some level of postpartum … depression,”  the Apprentice alum said on the Dr. Oz show in September 2017. “It was a very challenging emotional time for me. … I felt like I was not living up to my potential as a parent, or as an entrepreneur, or as an executive. I had such easy pregnancies that in some ways the juxtaposition hit me even harder.”

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Sarah Michelle Gellar

After the actress “made it through” PPD, “every day since has been the best gift,” she captioned a May 2017 Instagram post.

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Chrissy Teigen

“I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy,” the Cravings author wrote in a March 2017 Glamour essay following her daughter Luna’s birth. “What basically everyone around me — but me — knew up until December was this: I have postpartum depression. How can I feel this way when everything is so great? I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with that, and I hesitated to even talk about this.”

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Hayden Panettiere

In January 2017, the Nashville alum said on Today that she is a “better mom” because of her PPD experience. “It takes you a while. You feel off. You don’t feel like yourself,” Panettiere said at the time. “But, you know, women are so resilient, and that’s the incredible thing about them. I think I’m all the stronger for it.”

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Adele

After giving birth to her son, Angelo, the Grammy winner told Vanity Fair she turned to other mothers instead of antidepressants to battle her PPD, explaining in October 2016: “One day, I said to a friend, ‘I f–king hate this,’ and she burst into tears and said, ‘I f–king hate this, too.’ And it was done. It lifted.”

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Brooke Shields

The There Was a Little Girl author “really didn’t want to live anymore” after giving birth to Rowan, she revealed in her 2014 book. “[I’d think], ‘I just want to leap out of my life,’ but then the rational side of me [would say], ‘You’re only on the fourth floor. You’ll get broken to bits and then you will be even worse.'”

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Gwyneth Paltrow

The Goop creator’s then-husband, Chris Martin, helped her realize she had PPD following their son Moses’ birth. “I felt like a zombie,” she said on an April 2012 episode of The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet. “I felt very detached. I just didn’t know what was wrong with me. I couldn’t figure it out. It never occurred to me. My husband actually said, ‘Something’s wrong. I think you have postnatal depression.’ I was mortified. ‘No I don’t!’ And then I started researching what it was and the symptoms and I was like, ‘Oh, yes I do.'”

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Bryce Dallas Howard

In a July 2010 Goop essay, the Jurassic World star described her daily crying sessions, her inability to go downstairs to eat and the way she lashed out at her husband, Seth Gabel.

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Lisa Rinna

“I had visions of knives and guns,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star wrote in Rinnivation in 2009. “I made [my husband], Harry [Hamlin], hide all the sharp knives and take the gun out of the house because I had visions of killing everybody. Now how horrific is that? I wanted share it because I think women are so shamed by this and feel so horrible. … I found help and got through it.”

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Amanda Peet

In an August 2008 Gotham interview, the New York native revealed she’d experienced “fairly serious” PPD following her daughter’s birth. “It’s hard to find other people who are willing to talk about it,” she said.

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Courteney Cox

“I went through a really hard time – not right after the baby, but when [Coco] turned 6 months,” the Friends alum told USA Today in July 2005. “I couldn’t sleep. My heart was racing. And I got really depressed. I went to the doctor and found out my hormones had been pummeled.”