These Celebrity Moms Have Gotten Painfully Honest About Breastfeeding

Allyson Felix

Retired Olympian Allyson Felix knows firsthand just how grueling the Olympic Games and breastfeeding are. And so she made it her mission to establish a nursery in the Olympic Village so athletes could spend more time with their families and breastfeed.

“I’m so thrilled that there will be a nursery there and that parents, families, moms will be able to take part in a space that kind of feels like home where they can breastfeed, where they can just bond with their child, where they can just get away from it all because when you’re at the Olympics it’s stressful, it’s very busy … so to just have a space where you can just go away and you can have you’re child right there, I’m really excited,” she said at an event with The Lactation Network.

The mom of two shared how different her breastfeeding journeys were. When her daughter Camryn was born, the little girl was in the NICU. And so Felix was immediately pumping. With the birth of her son Trey, she started breastfeeding right away and reflected on the guilt she would feel whenever she thought of feeding Trey another way.

“I think there’s the physical part of it, but there’s also the emotional part as well. That’s very heavy in a period where you already have so many hormones and motions and all the things.”

“I would [tell parents] to be open and to be flexible,” she continued while explaining how having a lactation consultant as a “trusted source” helped her navigate her breastfeeding journey. “You don’t know what your situation is going to be. And I think it’s only natural to have a preconceived idea of what it’s going to be like. And you might be like, ‘Okay, I’m going to exclusively breastfeed, and this is really important to me, and it’s going to be beautiful.’ And you may not be able to and I think being so tightly wrapped around something can make it even harder.

“And so you want your baby to be healthy, and that might look a different way for you,” she said. “And so that’s my biggest thing. Don’t be married to just one way of doing things.”

Rumer Willis

In a 2023 interview with E! News, actress Rumer Willis said she doesn’t have shame about breastfeeding her daughter Louetta — even if society thinks she should feel that way. “That’s how they eat; that’s how they find connection; that’s how they find safety,” she said. “ … If people look at me weird or judge me, that’s fine. Whatever your journey is, don’t be ashamed.”

“It’s such a privilege to be able to feed your child and have those moments of connection,” she continued. “Are you going to prioritize what other people think of you over your connection with your child? … It doesn’t seem like there’s a general container of support for women to continue on their breastfeeding journey … If we remove all of the judgments and negativity, and show up with more compassion, then a lot of stuff would be drastically different.” 

Shawn Johnson

Retired Olympian Shawn Johnson had a harrowing experience that far too many breastfeeding moms experience. In 2021, after welcoming her son Jett, Johnson was allegedly “groped and yelled at” by a TSA worker for trying to travel with breastmilk even though it’s a medically necessary liquid that is approved by TSA regulations.

“I can honestly say that was one of the worst experiences,” the mom of three said. ” … We as mamas have a duty to our babies and a right in this world to carry breast milk through security. Having you public[ly] humiliate me in proving to you it was actually breast milk was against my rights. To then be groped and yelled at in public was excessive.”

“I know you were doing your job…but so was I,” she added.

Sadly, Keke Palmer, Maddie Marlow, and Emily Calandrelli have all had similar experiences.

Meghan Trainor

Meghan Trainor, while pregnant with her second son, opened up to SheKnows about the realities of breastfeeding and the ways she was uninformed the first time around.

“I remember thinking how confusing this is when someone was like, ‘Make sure you bring your pumps to the hospital,’ and I was like, ‘Silly goose, your milk doesn’t come in for days,’” she admits. “But I didn’t realize it’s because you dry pump to tell your boobies to make milk. So yeah, I’m going to pack breast pumps this time, and I’m gonna pack nipple cream and shields.”

And those creams and shields? They’re so it doesn’t hurt. Because no, there shouldn’t be excessive pain with breastfeeding. “I always was told like it’s going to hurt. And so I was like, ‘Okay, this is supposed to hurt, right?’ …   No, it shouldn’t hurt that bad … I’m not gonna let it hurt that bad this time around.”

In an earlier interview with SheKnows, the “Mother” singer said she didn’t like breastfeeding because her “boobies weren’t good at it.”

“I was told by a specialist that my breasts — or my nips — were too small. I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ I had to like do some science, and it didn’t work,” she says. “But, I did my best and I pumped for three months. And I gave up. I’m like, ‘I’m done!’” 

“Once I got thrush or whatever it is, I’m like, ‘I’m good! That’s enough.’” 

Keke Palmer

Keke Palmer got real with Essence about how hard yet empowering it was to breastfeed her son Leodis had been and how it affected the way she sees herself. “I think my breastfeeding journey was also very empowering because it was so difficult,” Palmer said. “And I wanted to give up at so many different points, but I just kept pushing myself and kept trying to figure it out.”

Heather Rae El Moussa

Heather Rae El Moussa opened up about the struggles she faced in the early weeks of breastfeeding her son Tristan, and she shared some tips for fellow struggling moms to help them overcome feeding challenges as well.

The Selling Sunset star wrote on Instagram, “I thought…. I’ll just pop him on my boob and feed him anytime. Ya no!!!” She continued, “Tristan had tongue tie, cheek tie, lip tie and jaundice … it made it very hard for him to latch & suck and it made it so that he was burning a lot of calories because it was so hard for him to eat so his weight was dropping.”

El Moussa recommended getting set up with a lactation specialist and putting an emphasis on nutrition and hydration before concluding, “Even with all this going on, I genuinely love breastfeeding. I love the skin to skin connection and think it’s such a beautiful bonding experience. It might be hard and challenging at the moment but it is such a special experience that I get to share with our baby boy and we’re working together to make it easier like we’re a little team.”

Mandy Moore

After welcoming her son Gus, Mandy Moore took to Instagram in celebration of World Breastfeeding Week to share her own experience, writing of the joys and struggle.

“Breastfeeding is not always smooth sailing (clogged ducts, timing life around feedings, pumping for when I’m at work, etc… ) but nursing this baby boy for the past nearly 6 months has been a beautiful, messy and an oh so rewarding experience I will treasure forever,” she shared. “It goes without saying that #fedisbest and I’m grateful to my body and the tremendous support I’ve had around me (especially in the beginning days and weeks when I had no clue what I was doing) for allowing me this time to nourish my sweet guy.”

Serena Williams

“It was interesting because all these articles, over pop culture, you hear when you breastfeed you lose weight, you’re so thin,” Williams told USA Today while discussing the dilemma she faced when training to get back on the court after having her first daughter. “Once I got to six months, I felt good about it. … I literally sat Olympia in my arms, I talked to her, we prayed about it. I told her, ‘Look, I’m going to stop. Mommy has to do this.’ I cried a little bit, not as much as I thought I was. She was fine. After that, like I literally lost 10 pounds in a week, I just kept dropping.”

The same did not seem to be true with her second daughter who she also shares with husband Alexis Ohanian. Eight months after welcoming Adira, Williams shared a TikTok update to say that “they” are “still hanging out.” “They” being her big breasts! “Seriously trying to figure out when these things are gonna go down,” she said in annoyance.

Katy Perry

Katy Perry was surprised by how tough it was to go back to work while still nursing her daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom. “Giving birth, then going back to work and breastfeeding, like — holy crap!” Perry admitted on Live with Kelly and Ryan. “This is what women do? Oh my God!”

She also joked with fellow American Idol hosts about her now-famous cow-print dress with secret nursing panels. 

Emily Ratajkowski

First-time mom Emily Ratajkowski has good-naturedly complained about the always-on feeling of on-demand nursing. In a breastfeeding gallery she shared to Instagram the model wrote, “If it seems like I’m always breastfeeding, it’s because I am,” she captioned the post.

Brittany Mahomes

Brittany Mahomes is quite the impressive multitasker. “Pilates & pumping, it’s a good time,” she wrote over a photo of her doing just that when her son Bronze was 8 months old. The fitness trainer also shared an emotional post when her daughter Sterling was 10 months old and she decided to stop breastfeeding.

“Last feed of breast milk today,” she wrote over a photo of baby Sterling and a bag of milk. “Very emotional … I was just ready to be done, but also like why is this so hard? Moms send help…”

Thandie Newton

“This is what my body is made for,” Thandie Newton wrote on Instagram, sharing a pick of herself breastfeeding at the music festival Latitude Fest. “And the rest is my choice.”

Hilaria Baldwin

Mom of six, Hilaria Baldwin is no stranger to nursing babies and even tandem nursed her two infants, Edu and Maria Lucia.

In a selfie shared to her Instagram Stories, Baldwin wrote, “This cow is tired and thirsty.” She added, “Let me tell you something you might already know: breastfeeding two babies is no joke.”

Hilary Duff

When Hilary Duff was a mom of three (now four!) she told Informed Pregnancy Podcast that she breastfed all of them.

“All of the babies latch really great, I’m just not a huge milk-producer, so it’s emotional for me,” Duff told  “In fact, this is the first baby that I haven’t supplemented with yet, so I’ve just exclusively been breastfeeding her. I’m going to keep trying that for a couple of weeks.”

“Just still painful and it’s hard, and it’s even harder having the other two that I know need me so much, and this takes up such a huge portion of the day,” she continued. “It seems like every 20 minutes, I’m feeding the baby, and I have to be sitting in one place, and Banks is still not quite old enough to understand, even though she has been amazing with the baby. It’s just hard.”

Meghan McCain

Meghan McCain welcomed daughter Liberty Sage in September 2020 — and found breastfeeding to be so painful, she took to x (formerly Twitter) to ask whether her nipples could really fall off.

“I know there is a LOT going on in the world that is much more important but I’m in the throes of newborn land. But I just wanted to know if your nipples can actually fall off from breast feeding?”

McCain got a lot of helpful feedback from moms in solidarity — and some unwanted advice from clueless dudes, too. Luckily, this is one mom who’s plenty able to ignore the concern trolls and do what’s best for her kid.

Naya Rivera

“It’s hard!” The late Naya Rivera told People shortly after welcoming her son Josey. “Breastfeeding is like finding out that all of a sudden you can get bacon from your elbow … It’s a trip. I started to feel like I was only a tit to Josey, and there was many a time I would walk in the door to a crying baby and immediately have to strip and feed.”

But for Rivera, it was all worth it. “The bond between a mother and baby when you’re breastfeeding is incredible and something no one else shares with your baby,” she wrote. “There’s also something amazing about the fact that you are sustaining a human life solely with your body.”

Alyssa Milano

Alyssa Milano has long been an outspoken advocate of breastfeeding — and she’s received her (unfair) share of criticism for it, too.

“You know what? I don’t care,” she told Entertainment Tonight back in 2015 regarding the breastfeeding-in-public backlash. “I’m going to keep breastfeeding, maybe even until [Elizabella is] 6!”

Milano continued, explaining that nobody seems to care when Miley Cyrus frees the nipple at an awards show. But breastfeeding? They’re all up in arms. “Everyone’s fine with her nipples being out,” Milano told the publication. “I think people are more comfortable sexualizing breasts than relating them to what they were made for, which is feeding another human.” Amen.

Eva Amurri

When actor and lifestyle blogger (and daughter of Susan Sarandon, of course) Eva Amurri announced that she was beginning to wean her third child, Mateo, at three months old, it elicited some internet mom-shaming from those who take the AAP’s “recommended” six months of exclusive breastfeeding as gospel. But, those folks are disregarding a key (shall we say, THE key?) component in healthy breastfeeding: That if and when it occurs, it is the mother’s choice and the mother’s choice only.

“The decision to wean is super personal for every woman and can come with a lot of emotion — especially because each woman’s decision to wean can be tied to feelings of really deep-rooted frustration, shame, sadness, relief, or pressure,” Amurri wrote on her website in June 2020. “There is no right way to feed a baby, in my opinion, and it’s taken three kids for me to solidly feel the right to that opinion. I wish I had felt more of a right to my feelings and opinions as a first time Mom. I wish I could go back to that 29 year old woman and tell her, ‘Listen Honey. You need to do what you need to do. You need to be strong and happy to make your child strong and happy!'”

Shay Mitchell

“Everybody has their own kind of journey with motherhood, with breastfeeding … this is what works for us right now and it’s nice,” Shay Mitchell told People shortly after having her daughter. “She is a little feisty one because even when there was nothing, she would just be like, ‘Weh,’ and then when she comes for the boob she has this face that’s scary. It was the funniest thing, but it was also terrifying. … I’m enjoying this phase right now without the teeth. She gets aggressive and she’ll hit my boob like, ‘Mama, get it out,’ and she’ll look up, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, okay, it’s coming, relax.’ If I don’t go fast enough, she pounds it and looks up.”

Troian Bellisario

“I would never have thought something so simple would be so complicated,” Troian Bellisario wrote on Instagram. “My milk came in immediately (so lucky!). My daughter has always eaten well (little bit of reflux but all good), and breastfeeding her was never painful or frustrating (SO RARE), but the mastitis, waking up in the middle of the night to pump, pulling off on the freeway to pump, or hiding in dark corners of houses while pumping, or else I can’t sleep; it’s SO PAINFUL. … But… no matter how much I HATE pumping or how complicated MY relationship with food is, it has been a joy, an honor and a no brainer to feed my daughter this way.”

Ashley Graham

Ashley Graham got real on The Daily Show about why she decided to stop breastfeeding her twins when they turned 5 months old. She had thought she should “only breastfeed” her firstborn but had to change tactics the second time around.

“I was like, ‘I’m not doing this. This is not working here,’” the model admitted. ” … [I stopped] and I gave them the best formula I could find in America. And these little guys are so strong and so happy, so I don’t think we should be telling people how they should be feeding their kids.”

“Law & Order: SVU” 25th Anniversary Celebration

“At a time when the world feels like it’s coming to an end, suck up as much love as you can!” Coco Austin wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of herself breastfeeding her then 4-year-old daughter Chanel. “At this point in nursing it’s just for comfort. And believe me, the girl loves meat, so it’s not like she isn’t eating real food.”

Ali Wong

“Breastfeeding is a blast,” comedian Ali Wong wrote (joked?!) on Instagram.

Chrissy Teigen

“Please look at my veins going to my milky boobs,” Teigen pleaded of her Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) followers when Miles was a baby. “What is this?” She got a whole lot of feedback, explaining that her breasts may have been engorged, or that her skin was simply thinner over her chest than it had been before.

Khloé Kardashian

“I tried breastfeeding for weeks and weeks!” Khloé Kardashian said on X (formerly Twitter) after welcoming her daughter True. “For me, it was so painful, but I also was not producing a lot of milk. So I had to pump every time she was napping. I guess due to stress, my milk was not coming in. I tried, and I just couldn’t give her enough. So I had to go to formula.”

Nikki Reed

“I often get asked how long I plan on breastfeeding,” Nikki Reed wrote on Instagram. “To be honest, I have no idea how long [my daughter] and I will be on this journey together. I follow her lead, and she tells me exactly what she needs.”

Emily Blunt

“After we got home from the hospital, I didn’t shower for a week, and then John and I were like, ‘Let’s go out for dinner,’ ” Emily Blunt told InStyle. “I could last only about an hour because my boobs were exploding. When the milk first comes in, it’s like a tsunami. But we went, just to prove to ourselves that we could feel normal for a second.” 

Amy Schumer

“There’s so much pressure to breastfeed, but really, it’s all in your head,” Schumer said on Informed Pregnancy. “Some people absolutely love it, and I’m so happy for them, but it was bumming me out. Once it occurred to me that I could stop, I was like, ‘I’m going to stop.'”

Tia Mowry

“Boobs glorious boobs. Wasn’t able to breastfeed Cree for long because of low milk supply,” Tia Mowry said on Instagram a few weeks after having daughter Cairo. “However, this time around I have plenty. Lots of teas, water, #fenugreek, and a high protein diet has contributed! More importantly, say no to stress!! I’m able to pump 12 ounces alone in the morning for my little brown suga!”

Kate Upton

“The reality, for me, was that breastfeeding was sucking the energy away from me,” Kate Upton toldThe Editorialist. Later, she clarified her quote on Instagram, explaining, “I realized quickly that between breastfeeding, healing, little-to-no sleep, off-the-charts hormone changes and experiencing everything for the first time that those weight-loss pressures are extremely unnecessary, and I decided to turn my energy towards my family.”

Jenna Jameson

After posting a photo of herself nursing her toddler, Jenna Jameson had to respond to the haters in her comments: “Breastfeeding isn’t the problem. People’s backwards opinions are.”

Adele

“All those people who put pressure on us, you can go fuck yourselves, all right?” Adele said onstage at London’s O2 Arena. “Breastfeed if you can, but don’t worry, [formula]’s just as good. I mean, I loved it, all I wanted to do was breastfeed, and then I couldn’t. And then I felt like, ‘If I was in the jungle … back in the day, my kid would be dead because my milk’s gone.’ It’s not funny. That’s how some of us think.”

Kristin Cavallari

“I had major clogged [milk] ducts,” Kristin Cavallari explained on her reality show Very Cavallari. She then revealed that her now ex-husband Jay Culter had to “get them out” for her. “Sucking harder than he’s ever sucked.”

She later told E!, “When we said it, I remember we were both like, ‘Of course, I know they are going to use that,’ and it’s going to become a thing. But listen, if you’ve had clogged ducts before, you know how painful it can be. I mean, they can get infected, and so Jay was just saving my life, all right? He’s a good husband. Listen, he’s a really dedicated husband.”

Lauren Conrad

“I, like a lot of moms, thought breastfeeding would be the most natural, beautiful thing in the world, and that it would come really easily to me, and I would just kind of know what to do because that’s what my body is made to do,” Lauren Conrad said on her podcast, describing having low milk supply. “I felt like I was failing at something that should come really naturally, and it was really difficult for me. I felt ashamed, and it kind of made me feel like a bad mom.”