Paloma Faith has shed light on her heartbreaking fertility struggles.
The singer and actress, 42, appeared in the How to fail with Elizabeth’s day podcast, in which she revealed that she suffered a miscarriage on the set of the 2019 drama Pennyworth, in which she plays sociopath Bet Sykes.
She explained that while filming a fight scene, she realized she was having an abortion, but insisted on continuing filming for fear of losing her job, saying, “I would go home without a job and without a viable pregnancy.”
The star, who shares two children with her ex Leyman Lahcine, also detailed that she suffered a traumatic ectopic pregnancy after undergoing IVF treatment, and that the ectopic pregnancy damaged a fallopian tube and affected her fertility.
She continued: ‘Then I had an ectopic pregnancy with my first one and then my fertility starts to decline because they damaged my tube. The second time it worked, so I was lucky because I ended up with 2 viable pregnancies pretty quickly.’
Paloma Faith has shed light on her heartbreaking fertility struggles
The singer and actress, 42, appeared on the How To Fail With Elizabeth Day podcast, in which she revealed that she suffered a miscarriage on the set of the 2019 drama Pennyworth, in which she plays sociopath Bet Sykes.
On keeping her miscarriage a secret at work, Paloma said: ‘(The miscarriage) started at work and it was a fight scene at Pennyworth. I just thought: He’s gone, so I might as well get on with what I was doing. I had to go to the bathroom 9 times…
‘I told them that I ate something bad last night because I knew that if I told them they would walk me home. I did not want to. I would go home without a job and without a viable pregnancy.’
Paloma has been candid about her fertility issues, having endured a number of difficult experiences during her baby’s journey.
The star welcomed a daughter with husband Leyman in December 2016 and a second daughter in February 2021, before splitting after nine years together last year.
In their quest to have a baby, before welcoming their daughters, Paloma and Leyman underwent IVF, which she said, “It’s very heartbreaking to do and it always takes a backseat.” Nobody knows what is happening. We had some problems…
“I knew quickly that there were problems and then I found out that the beginning of our fertility treatment was because it was on her side that there were those problems, but thanks to modern science and patriarchy, it still falls on the woman.”
She then shed light on her ectopic pregnancy, which occurs when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, usually in one of the fallopian tubes.
She said: ‘Then I had an ectopic pregnancy with my first one and my fertility starts to decline because they damaged a tube…
“The second time it worked, so I was lucky because I ended up with 2 viable pregnancies pretty quickly.”
Paloma shed light on her difficult births and said: ‘The birth was really difficult. It was actually unbearable…
“It started with PROMS (premature rupture of membranes): you are, more or less, in labor and I think that was only when you were 6 months pregnant, and they told me: You are going to have to induce, you are going to have a premature baby …
“I was really defiant that I was going to have that, so I was just on bed rest and drinking 4 liters of water a day for a month to replace the lost water.”
Of the traumatic moment and her severe lack of sleep, she said: ‘After 21 hours of labor and no sleep for a week. I slept 7 hours in 7 days…
‘I had an emergency caesarean section which then also caused me fertility problems, and then a bit of postpartum psychosis due to lack of sleep, so I was kind of freaking out. Probably depressed for a couple of years without realizing it…
The star welcomed a daughter with husband Leyman in December 2016 and a second daughter in February 2021, before splitting after nine years together last year.
‘Later I wanted to have a second child and then I had 3 failed transfers. The fourth one worked and I was a little stubborn about it.
Elsewhere, she opened up about their split. Paloma married the French artist, 36, in 2017 before confirming they had split in 2022 after nine years together.
Talking about coping with a breakup with kids, she said: “It feels dramatically different because you can’t do the initial part where you say, I need space, I can’t see you anymore.” You are forced to do that…
“At first we pretended, we pretended we were getting along, we pretended we weren’t absolutely devastated and that gets confusing. It’s like an endless breakup…
I feel bad for anyone who dates me because it’s so important. He is so absorbed in my children that he is almost more important than anyone else who may come. I put him before most people because he is the father of my children.
Paloma spoke about growing up with a single mother and her mother’s difficult situation.
Paloma has been open about her fertility issues, having endured a series of difficult experiences during her baby journey.
She said: ‘I did it especially because my mother came from extreme poverty on a scale that doesn’t even exist anymore…
‘If there was no money, there was no food, and stealing food from other farmers was because they were from a rural area…
‘Knowing that she got out of that and telling me all the time: We had education because we wanted to get out of that. We studied because we wanted an escape route.
‘Coming from a home life where education was important led me to get all As in my exam, to get a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree, all of that. “It was definitely motivated by honoring what she had done.”
Elsewhere, she opened up about their split. Paloma married the French artist, 36, in 2017 before confirming that they had separated in 2022 after nine years together (Paloma and Leyman in 2015).