Two years ago, model Chrissy Teigen announced she and husband John Legend lost their child in a miscarriage. But on Thursday, Teigen revealed that pregnancy complications forced her to have an abortion, a realization she’s only come to recently.

Teigen shared her story at “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” in Beverly Hills, California. The event aims to help TV content creators better understand and portray sensitive topics. 

Teigen began discussing her miscarriage before stopping herself and saying: “Let's just call it what it was. It was an abortion. An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance.”

"It became very clear around halfway through [the pregnancy] that he would not survive and that I wouldn't either without any medical intervention," said Teigen, who added she had to make “a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions.”

She said it was only after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that she understood she had an abortion. She said she told Legend she felt sympathy for people faced with making decisions about abortions when the singer pointed out that they were among those people. 

“I fell silent, feeling weird that I hadn't made sense of it that way,” she said Thursday.

“I told the world we had a miscarriage. The world agreed we had a miscarriage. All the headlines said it was a miscarriage.

“And I became really frustrated that I didn't, in the first place, say what it was, and I felt silly that it had taken me over a year to actually understand that we had had an abortion.”

Teigen, who has two children with Legend and is pregnant again, announced on social media in September 2020 that she lost her baby, whom she and Legend named Jack. The announcement was accompanied by a photo of Teigen crying in her hospital bed.

In an essay for Medium about a month later, she said she was diagnosed with a partial placental abruption, leading to significant bleeding. A partial placental abruption occurs when the placenta does not completely detach from the uterine wall.

“After a couple nights at the hospital, my doctor told me exactly what I knew was coming — it was time to say goodbye,” Teigen wrote. “He just wouldn’t survive this, and if it went on any longer, I might not either.”

She said numerous blood transfusions did not help.  

“Late one night, I was told it would be time to let go in the morning,” she wrote. “I cried a little at first, then went into full blown convulsions of snot and tears, my breath not able to catch up with my own incredibly deep sadness. Even as I write this now, I can feel the pain all over again.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade gave states the power to decide abortion laws. Thirteen states ban all or nearly all abortions, many not making exceptions when the mother’s health is at risk.

The Biden administration has told hospitals federal law requires they provide abortion services if the mother’s life is at risk, even if state law prohibits it. Last month, a federal judge in Texas blocked that guidance while another judge in Idaho upheld it.