Danielle Brooks is opening up about previously undergoing an abortion.
“It was really hard [and] very, very difficult to actually have an abortion,” Brooks, 35, said on the July 24 episode of the “Pregnant Pause” podcast. “It was not what I wanted, but there was no way around it.”
She continued, “I think it’s important to share [and] I have been holding that for years now, but I think there comes a time where it’s, like, ‘You know what? I want to [share] this because I know that there’s some woman out there [who] might be experiencing the same thing.”
Brooks explained that because of one of the medications she was taking at the time, she needed to have an abortion.
“I, unfortunately, had a lot of acne. I was doing The Color Purple on Broadway, and my face was a mess,” she recalled. “I was also doing Orange Is the New Black, and there was so much touching on my face, and that caused a lot of acne. I decided to do Accutane, but if you know anything about Accutane, when you are on [the medication], you are not supposed to get pregnant. It’s a requirement.”
Brooks explained that when she started Accutane, she needed to sign a form agreeing that she wouldn’t get pregnant and would have an abortion if she did.
“I met my husband [Dennis Gelin], and I had gotten pregnant. I broke all the rules,” she quipped of her spouse, whom she married in 2022. “I will never forget when I saw that pregnancy test. I broke down, and it wasn’t out of fear.”
Brooks added, “I broke down because I realized I wanted to be a mom, and that option was no longer on the table in this moment, and it shocked the hell out of me because I had always been like, ‘I don’t want to be a mother. I’m good. Career, career.’”
The actress further noted that having the D&C after her realization stirred up “a lot of emotions.”
“[I felt] guilty [and] selfish a lot,” Brooks said. “But I had a great partner, which is what was most important to me. He helped me through that time, and that was one of the reasons I said, ‘This is my husband,’ because he’s showing up in the right ways.”
Before meeting Gelin, Brooks wasn’t sure whether parenthood would be in the cards at all.
“I did not want children. I was one of those women who believed I was not going to be married and I was not going to have kids, and I was OK with that,” she explained on the podcast. “Then, I met my lovely husband, Dennis, in New York, and I was, like, ‘You know what? I actually think I can have his babies.’”
Brooks added, “It was more about the partnership, and I think that’s what scared me the most was feeling, like, I would have a child but not have someone to walk the journey with [and who] would take care of me during postpartum [and] be aligned when it came to religion, how we raised the baby and with schooling, all of that.”
After Brooks stopped taking Accutane, she got pregnant again. The Tony Award nominee and Gelin welcomed their daughter, Freeya, in November 2019.
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