Even after announcing their first child, Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright faced scrutiny over when they chose to welcome a baby.
The Coronation Street star, 37, and The Only Way Is Essex personality, 37, announced on Sunday they were expecting their first child after nine years of marriage.
Sharing a picturesque snap showing her bump on a beach, Michelle wrote on Instagram: ‘2025 is going to be a special one for us… 👶🏻🤍✨.’
The couple were inundated with congratulations, yet some users couldn’t help but comment it was ‘about time’ they had a child, despite knowing nothing about their journey to conceive.
Some simply wrote ‘finally’, while another said: ‘Didn’t think it would ever happen, so happy for them both, congratulations.’
Seemingly innocent comments from fans that they have been ‘waiting to hear this for years’ imply a certain amount of pressure over the timescale the celeb couple has taken to get pregnant, a wildly invasive comment even from friends and family, let alone strangers on the internet.
Others pointed out ‘Now people can stop asking when you’re going to have a baby’, referencing the pressure Michelle and Mark have faced from fans over the years.
During an interview in 2021, Fool Me Once actor Michelle opened up on her ‘frustration’ over the ‘sexist’ baby comments she had received badgering her over her family plans.
‘I’m used to people asking me but it’s no one else’s business,’ she told You Magazine.
‘Nobody else knows what goes on behind closed doors. I think that’s the reason that question affects me so much – it’s very private!
‘Mark is asked about it occasionally but I’m asked every single time.’
She doubled down on her opinions when speaking to Women’s Health UK, sharing: ‘I do think it’s different for a woman. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I get asked about children whereas Mark wouldn’t, for example. Why haven’t I had a child?
‘When am I going to have a child? I don’t know what they want me to say. I don’t know what the right or wrong answer is.’
A year prior, the Brassic star said: ‘‘A few years ago it didn’t bother me and I answered the question, but now I think, “I don’t need to answer that,” because nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors.’
She recalled to Cosmopolitan: ‘I remember when I finished Our Girl people were like, “Is it because you’re going off to have a baby?” I know for a fact if Mark finished a job, nobody would ask him if he was going to have a baby.’
‘It’s not fair,’ Michelle vented. ‘It does make me feel frustrated.’
In 2019, she told The Sun: ‘It’s horrible. It’s like, “You’re 32. Are you not planning to have a baby yet?”
‘People don’t know if we’re trying. They don’t know the background of what’s happening. It’s no one else’s business. In this day and age you shouldn’t ask questions like that.
‘I’m asked purely because I’m a woman. But I’m immune to it now — it’s like a reaction and as soon as I hear it I brush it off, as it’s no one else’s business.’
And yet despite a well-documented history of despising these comments about her body autonomy, Michelle has continued to field baby-related questions.
She’s not the only celebrity who has spoken out over the invasive interrogations, with the likes of Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Margot Robbie using their platforms to hit back at pregnancy speculation.
‘It made me really angry,’ Barbie star Robbie told Radio Times in 2019 when asked about speculation over when – not if – she and husband Tom Ackerley would have a child.
‘How dare some old guy dictate what I can and can’t do when it comes to motherhood or my own body?’
‘I got married and the first question in almost every interview is ‘Babies? When are you having one? I’m so angry that there’s this social contract. You’re married, now have a baby. Don’t presume. I’ll do what I’m going to do.’
Defending pop superstar Gaga after intense speculation she was pregnant, Cruel Summer hitmaker Taylor wrote: ‘Can we all agree that it’s invasive and irresponsible to comment on a woman’s body.
‘Gaga doesn’t owe anyone an explanation and neither does any woman.’
Friends star Jennifer Aniston has been incredibly vocal on the subject over the years, detailing the hurtful rumours and assumptions she experienced during her career.
She told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 that she used to take the speculation over why she had not had children ‘very personally’ as fans and journalists did not know her situation.
‘It’s like, “You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically, why I can’t … can I have kids?”‘ she explained. ‘They don’t know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty.’
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