Margot Robbie Is Pregnant, But We Didn’t Hear It From Her
This article includes mentions of infant loss, and may be distressing for some readers. Helplines can be found at the close.
When I saw headlines appear all over my newsfeed yesterday about Margot Robbie’s pregnancy, I was pumped. For her, obviously, and for me. I knew it would be a fun story to cover. Everyone loves Margot Robbie and everyone loves cute little bebs. Simple!
It wasn’t until I sat down to start writing this morning that I realised Margot never actually shared the pregnancy news herself.
While People made the official announcement, citing confirmation from “multiple sources”, they also included the fact that “Representatives for both stars did not respond to People’s requests for comment.” Hmm.
“See Pregnant Margot Robbie Debut Her Baby Bump” E! News baited us, showing a series of slightly grainy images of Margot and husband Tom Ackerley on a pier in Lake Como. Margot is wearing a black suit with a white crop and has a visible bump. God, I hated writing “visible bump” just then.
While Margot does have social media, she hasn’t posted anything on her Instagram since January and tends to only share images related to her work (promotional tours, photoshoots, awards shows etc). We know she’s been married to husband/business partner Tom since 2016, however like the pregnancy news, we only know this because of invasive paparazzi footage. The couple never publicly shared anything wedding-related.
So, where does that leave us? And by us, I mean us fans of Margot. It all feels a little complicated.
On the one hand, it’s lovely news and I’m happy for the couple. On the other hand, I feel a little sorry for them. They obviously value their privacy, and while I can’t make assumptions that they were blindsided by any of this, it all feels a little bit icky that something this personal was aired so publicly.
Pregnancy, fertility and motherhood are complex, but throw in fame and public interest and it becomes almost impossible to navigate. I’m just not really sure how anyone is meant to go about it anymore.
Back in the late 90s and early 00s, tabloid culture was running rampant, and pregnancy speculation was everywhere. Poor Jennifer Aniston copped it incessantly, and while she stayed relatively silent at the time, she penned a powerful personal essay for The Huffington Post in 2016 in which she shared her frustrations with the tabloids and the dangerous ideologies they perpetuated. “I have grown tired of being part of this narrative. Yes, I may become a mother some day, and since I’m laying it all out there, if I ever do, I will be the first to let you know. But I’m not in pursuit of motherhood because I feel incomplete in some way, as our celebrity news culture would lead us all to believe.”
Fucking fair enough, Jen.
Fast forward to the late 2010s/early 2020s, and the rise of social media is a double-edged sword. Celebrities have way more control over what they choose to share and their own narratives, but with the creation of pages like Deux Moi, “celeb-spotting” has become a sport. Everyone has a camera on them at all times and celebrities are seen as fair game.
Speculation of Kylie Jenner’s 2017 pregnancy with daughter Stormi was so bad that the reality star essentially went into hiding. She shared the announcement in February 2018 with the internet-imploding “For Our Daughter” video and followed it up with another post essentially apologising for keeping the world in the dark. If I had grown up in the spotlight with the world criticising my every move and then fallen pregnant at 20, I’d probably want a little privacy too.
Image credit: @kyliejenner Instagram
A few weeks ago, Mindy Kaling revealed that she’d welcomed her third child in February via an Instagram post. “I’m so lucky I live in a place where I could do this by myself, on my own timeline,” she shared. Mindy has never publicly revealed the father of her children, however, the internet loves to believe that her co-star/co-writer from The Office, B.J. Novak (who is her children’s godparent), is the baby-daddy because we simply cannot respect her privacy.
Then there’s Chrissy Teigen. The wife of singer John Legend (who got pretty hecticly cancelled during the pandemic but has found her way back into the internet’s good graces) has been incredibly open about her pregnancy journey. Chrissy shared extremely vulnerable pictures and details about the loss of her third son, Jack, at 20 weeks, and years later, cautiously let the world know that she was pregnant again. Months after daughter Esti arrived, she and John revealed that they’d welcomed another son via surrogate, Wren.
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While many were overwhelmingly grateful for Chrissy’s transparency and bravery in sharing her pregnancy loss experience, she of course copped criticism from haters, attacking her for not keeping it private.
So to recap. Keeping it private = unfair to fans. Being too public = inappropriate. Got it!
When The Bachelor couple Jimmy Nicholson and Holly Kingston shared their pregnancy news last month, I was struck by the caption on their joint Instagram video detailing the challenges they faced falling pregnant.
View this post on Instagram
“Whilst we were struggling through this privately, we made a promise to ourselves that if/when we do eventually get pregnant, we will acknowledge on here that it wasn’t as easy as we had anticipated… in the hopes it might make some feel less alone. For those looking at this right now experiencing infertility or loss, we see you and from the bottom of our hearts hope a little miracle comes your way too,” the post read.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a public figure share this sentiment, but I appreciated the candidness. We often follow public figures because of the picture-perfect lifestyles they project, so it can feel relieving to know that regardless of circumstances, everyone’s pregnancy experiences can be challenging. With that said, I don’t begrudge anyone (famous or not) who doesn’t include wording around the complexities of fertility when sharing their pregnancy news.
While I don’t believe there’s a right or wrong way to announce a pregnancy in 2024, I think we can all fundamentally agree that the news should come directly from the people involved, and that any sort of tabloid interference is a YK2 trend we don’t need to see revived.
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Written by Lil Friedmann. You can follow her at @lilfriedmann on socials.
Image credit: Getty + Punkee