HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 12: Julia Louis-Dreyfus attends the 95th Annual Academy Awards on March 12, 2023 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
On Tuesday’s episode of Wiser Than Me, the much-listened-to podcast from Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star openly shared her own “devastating” experience with miscarriage.
The actress known for her star roles on Seinfeld and Veep shared, “When I was about 28, I got pregnant for the first time, and I was crazy happy. I got pregnant easily. I felt very fertile—very womanly. And then, quite late in the pregnancy, my husband Brad and I discovered that this little fetus was not going to live.”
Louis-Dreyfus married her husband, Brad Hall, in 1987 and eventually went on to have two sons, Henry and Charlie, with him.
“So that was emotionally devastating, as you can imagine,” she said on her podcast. “But it got worse because I developed an infection that landed me in the hospital. And I mean, this whole thing was just a complete nightmare. Of course, my mom flew out to be with me,” she continued.
“I finally got out of the hospital and I came home to recuperate, but I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed yet,” she shared. “I was, as they say, bedridden.”
Louis-Dreyfus, now 62, had just been cast in Seinfeld that year, the show that earned her a first Emmy and catapulted her to household name status.
“She made this incredible cozy chili in a cast iron skillet with cornbread on top in the pan,” Louis-Dreyfus detailed about her mother taking care of her as she journeyed through the aftermath of miscarriage. “She and my husband Brad set up a little card table at the foot of the bed. And the smell of that cornbread and chili was so wonderful.”
“It didn’t matter” that she couldn’t eat it, she explained, because “the making of it was so comforting and embracing.”
Get parenting news, expert advice, info on secret sales, discounts and the best-ever products. Sign up for the Today’s Parent newsletter.
