21 Postpartum Depression Quotes From Famous Women Every Parent Needs to Hear

Serena Williams

Serena Williams candidly opened up about her experience with postpartum depression following life-threatening complications during the birth of her first daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., in 2018. “I think people need to talk about it more because it’s almost like the fourth trimester, it’s part of the pregnancy,” she said of the condition in her July 2018 cover story for Harper’s Bazaar UK. “I remember one day, I couldn’t find Olympia’s bottle and I got so upset I started crying . . . because I wanted to be perfect for her.”

In an Instagram post shared in August 2018, Williams added, “Last week was not easy for me. Not only was I accepting some tough personal stuff, but I just was in a funk. Mostly, I felt like I was not a good mom. I read several articles that said postpartum emotions can last up to 3 years if not dealt with. I like communication best. Talking things through with my mom, my sisters, my friends let me know that my feelings are totally normal.”

Carey Mulligan

Carey Mulligan addressed the realities of managing her own postpartum depression after starring in Maria Schrader’s 2022 drama She Said, in which her character, journalist Megan Twohey, experiences postpartum depression. “One of the parts of the script that hit me initially the most was Megan’s experience with postnatal depression,” Mulligan told People in 2022. “I had a very similar experience with my first child seven years ago, and felt very alone, and very scared, and also very confused by the whole experience.” The mother of two added that acknowledging her symptoms and working on the film “was the thing that got me on the road to finding myself again with incredible support around me.”

Hayden Panettiere

Hayden Panettiere played a character with postpartum depression on Nashville, and used the opportunity to open up about her own experience — and spread awareness. “There’s a lot of misunderstanding,” the actress said on Live! With Kelly and Michael in 2015, per E! News. “It’s something that needs to be talked about. Women need to know that they’re not alone, and that it does heal.”

Halle Bailey

Halle Bailey went through a highly-speculated pregnancy in 2023, and after she gave birth to her son with boyfriend DDG, she got candid with fans about her postpartum mental health challenges. “I feel like a completely different person,” Bailey said in a Snapchat video later posted to social media by a fan. “I think there’s something to be said about what women… go through… after building and creating this beautiful life,” Bailey went on. “What happens to us and our well-being right after?” 

Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t experience postpartum depression after giving birth to her first child, Apple, but it hit hard after her second — to the point that Paltrow was in denial about what exactly she was experiencing. ” I really went into a dark place,” she told Good Housekeeping in 2011. In fact, it was her ex-husband Chris Martin that suggested Paltrow was experiencing PPD. “About four months into it, Chris came to me and said, ‘Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.’ I kept saying, ‘No, no, I’m fine.’ But Chris identified it, and that sort of burst the bubble.”

Ayesha Curry

After giving birth to her second child, Ryan, in 2015, Ayesha Curry, who is currently expecting her fourth child with husband Steph Curry, said it took time to identify the symptoms of her postpartum depression, namely insecurities over her physical appearance and abilities to perform as a mother. “Looking back now, I can say without a shadow of doubt, I had postpartum depression with Ryan, but I didn’t know what that was at that time,” Curry said in an episode of her sister-in-law Sydel Curry-Lee’s Because Life podcast.

Behati Prinsloo

In a 2019 essay for Today, model Behati Prinsloo wrote about experiencing postpartum depression after giving birth to her first child with husband Adam Levine. “I think I got lucky not to have it to an extreme case, but you can see yourself spiraling,” recalled Prinsloo, who credited Levine for being “incredibly supportive” during her experience.

Cardi B

Cardi B didn’t expect postpartum depression to hit as hard as it did after giving birth to her son Kulture with husband Offset in 2018. “I thought I was going to avoid it,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in 2019, but the mental health struggles came “out of nowhere.”

Lisa Rinna

Lisa Rinna faced difficulties opening up about her postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter, Delilah. “I, after having my child — my first daughter, Delilah — had severe postpartum depression. I kept it secret. I didn’t say a word to anybody in the world,” she told HLN’s Dr. Drew in 2012. “[My husband] thought I was just nuts. He had no idea what was going on and I was so hopeless and felt so lost.” After 10 months of remaining silent about her struggles, Rinna finally opened up to her husband, Harry Hamlin, and received the help she needed to manage her postpartum depression. “Opening up about something that I felt so much shame about was the most valuable thing that I could have done,” she said.

Tess Holliday

Model Tess Holliday took to Facebook in 2018 to share her experience with postpartum depression, which lingered into her son Bowie’s second year of life. “I’ve never had suicidal thoughts, or self harm, but the thoughts of just wanting to stop hurting and feeling helpless were new & frankly overwhelming,” Holliday wrote in the emotional post. “It wasn’t until recently that I realized I had extreme PPD.” Holliday said that her case of PPD was extreme, and getting help for it “potentially saved my life.”

Princess Diana

Princess Diana was one of the first and most prominent stars to break the stigma on postpartum depression. The royal spoke about it in her 1995 BBC interview, saying PPD was something “no one ever discusses… you have to read about it afterwards, and that in itself was a bit of a difficult time. You’d wake up in the morning feeling you didn’t want to get out of bed, you felt misunderstood, and just very, very low in yourself.”

Melissa Rycroft

TV host and Bachelor alum Melissa Rycroft didn’t realize she was experiencing postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Ava, in 2011, until her husband said something. “I had this big emptiness that you shouldn’t have right after you have a baby. I was like, I don’t want to seem like I’m not happy — it’s just that there’s something chemically wrong. I would get frustrated and angry really easily,” she told The Bump.

Marie Osmond

Marie Osmond opened up about her postpartum depression experience in 1999 in an appearance on Oprah, and later wrote a book on her struggle. “It’s very difficult to explain,” she told Oprah. “In some cases it’s like your eyes are in the back of your head and you just want to close them and never open them. You’re so incredibly tired. Not only do you have a new baby to take care of, but you have six other children to take care of as well.”

Drew Barrymore

Following the birth of her second daughter, Frankie, in 2014, Drew Barrymore shared her personal struggle with postpartum depression and how the consequential overwhelm inspired her to find balance in her life as a working mom. “I didn’t have postpartum the first time so I didn’t understand it because I was like, ‘I feel great!’” she said in People’s October 2015 cover issue. “The second time, I was like, ‘Oh, whoa, I see what people talk about now. I understand,’ It’s a different type of overwhelming with the second. I really got under the cloud.”

Barrymore added that her postpartum depression symptoms went away after about six months, but the condition had a lasting impact on her approach to motherhood. “I just got right on the idea of, where do I need to be the most? Fifty-fifty would be ideal but life doesn’t work like that. Life is messy,” she continued. “It was just really challenging and I felt overwhelmed. I made a lot of decisions and I definitely changed my work life to suit my parenthood.”

Chrissy Teigen

Chrissy Teigen struggled with feelings of guilt for experiencing postpartum depression after giving birth to her daughter Luna with husband John Legend. “I couldn’t control it,” she wrote in an essay for Glamour in 2017. “And that’s part of the reason it took me so long to speak up: I felt selfish, icky, and weird saying aloud that I’m struggling. Sometimes I still do.”

Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette first experienced postpartum depression after the birth of her oldest son, Ever, in 2010. She struggled with the condition twice more following the birth of her daughter, Onyx, in 2016 and son, Winter, in 2019. “I had postpartum depression after each pregnancy, and with each kid it got progressively worse,” Morissette told TODAY Parents in 2021. “I’m happy to say that I’m finally on the other side of it — but it just happened in the last three months.” 

The mom of three added, “When I was in the thick of it, some people would say, ‘Oh, she just needs to go for a walk.’ Or, ‘She just needs some sleep!’ But news flash: It’s so multilayered. It’s biochemical, it’s neurochemical, it’s circumstantial, it’s environmental. It’s not just one thing, it’s not a quick fix.”

Sarah Michelle Gellar

In 2017, Sarah Michelle Gellar shared the difficulties she faced as a result of postpartum depression and encouraged people experiencing similar symptoms postpartum to seek support. “I love my children more than anything in the world,” Gellar captioned an Instagram post raising awareness for the condition. “But like a lot of women, I too struggled with postpartum depression after my first baby was born. I got help, and made it through, and every day since has been the best gift I could ever have asked for. To those of you going through this, know that you’re not alone and that it really does get better.”

Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon shared the impact of postpartum depression on her lifelong mental health conditions, namely depression and anxiety, in a 2020 episode of Jameela Jamil‘s I Weighpodcast. “I’ve had three kids. After each child I had a different experience. One kid I had kind of mild postpartum, and one kid I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all.” Witherspoon also recalled the effects of weaning her first daughter from breastfeeding, “I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my whole life,” she said. “It was scary. I didn’t have the right kind of guidance or help, I just white-knuckled back.”

Since becoming a mother of three, Witherspoon has been outspoken about her experiences in an attempt to raise awareness of the mental health struggles parents face postpartum. “I think hormones are so understudied and not understood,” she continued. “I kept reaching out to my doctors for answers. There just isn’t enough research about what happens to women’s bodies and the hormonal shifts that we have aren’t taken as seriously as I think they should be. I have deep compassion for women who are going through that,” she added. “Postpartum is very real.”

Kylie Jenner

Kylie Jenner also opened up about the challenges she faced as a result of postpartum depression following the births of her daughter, Stormi, and her son, Aire. “I have experienced it. Twice. The first time was very difficult, the second was more manageable,” she said in an interview for Vanity Fair Italia’s March 2023 cover issue.

When asked what advice she has for postpartum parents experiencing similar symptoms, Jenner said, “Stay inside that moment, even if it is painful. I know, in those moments you think that it will never pass, that your body will never be the same as before, that you will never be the same. That’s not true: the hormones, the emotions at that stage are much, much more powerful and bigger than you. My advice is to live through that transition, without fear of the aftermath. The risk is to miss all the most beautiful things of motherhood as well.”

Adele

Three years after welcoming her son Angelo, Adele detailed her experience with postpartum depression and how the condition inspired her to take time for herself as a new mother. “I had really bad postpartum depression after I had my son, and it frightened me,” she said in her December 2016 cover story for Vanity Fair. “My knowledge of postpartum — or post-natal, as we call it in England — is that you don’t want to be with your child; you’re worried you might hurt your child; you’re worried you weren’t doing a good job. But I was obsessed with my child. I felt very inadequate; I felt like I’d made the worst decision of my life.”

Later in the interview, Adele added, “Four of my friends felt the same way I did, and everyone was too embarrassed to talk about it; they thought everyone would think they were a bad mom, and it’s not the case. It makes you a better mom if you give yourself a better time.”

Bryce Dallas Howard

Bryce Dallas Howard “loved being pregnant,” she told Goop in 2022, but was unsettled when she “felt nothing” after giving birth. As she struggled with breastfeeding and lack of sleep, the actress felt like she was “suffering emotional amnesia.” She explained, “Every time I looked at my son, I wanted to disappear.” Howard eventually reached out for help through her midwife, care team, friends, and family.

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