Penn Badgley Got Really Real About Pregnancy Loss and its Impact on His Marriage

The thing about miscarriage? You truly don’t have a concept of how devastating they can be until you’ve experienced one yourself. It’s such an isolating loss. The baby and pregnancy were, in many ways, only real to you. When you’re the pregnant person, even your partner can’t fully wrap their head around what you’re experiencing. 

That’s why I wasn’t surprised to hear Penn Badgley’s recent comments on the impact his wife, Domino Kirke’s two miscarriages had on their marriage. 

“We did near a separation. And of course, we didn’t give into the gravity of that, the entropy of that,” Badgley said on an episode of the Totally Booked With Zibby podcast.

In his recently released book, Crushmore: Essays on Love, Loss, and Coming-of-Age, the actor expanded on the experience. 

“This was our second loss together, a time when I did not feel as though the cycle would break,” he wrote. “My wife and I neared separation, as many do after losses like that, largely because we felt so isolated in a culture that doesn’t talk much about these things or know how to support those going through it.”

As someone who has been through a pregnancy loss, I see exactly where he is coming from. Because we don’t talk enough about pregnancy loss, people don’t know how to handle someone who is going through one. We don’t even know how to speak to or care for ourselves when we’re in it, and part of that is because we are so unprepared.

At the same time, all the preparation in the world can’t prime you for what it is really like to lose a pregnancy.

There are the hormonal shifts and the physical toll the loss takes on your body…but there’s also that awful feeling like you’ve lost control of your body, or that you’ve failed somehow (even though miscarriages are absolutely not your fault). It’s such an invisible, intangible loss — but it’s still so real and so big. 

Props to this couple for refusing to whisper about this topic. We need more honesty like this.