Heavy/Getty Actress Chelsea Hobbs
Actress Chelsea Hobbs has starred in enough romantic comedies, including multiple Hallmark movies, to know the importance of keeping the vibe light and positive on set. But that proved to be particularly difficult when Hobbs suffered a miscarriage while filming a Christmas movie.
Hobbs opened up about the experience during an interview on December 11, 2023, on the Previa Alliance Podcast, which is devoted to telling the stories of women who have survived pregnancy trauma and perinatal mood disorders. Hobbs said she now wishes she hadn’t hidden what she was going through from most of the cast and crew, especially when her director asked her to stop looking so sad.
“I know as an educated, grown woman that there is nothing I should have felt wrong or ashamed about,” Hobbs said.
Here’s what you need to know:
Chelsea Hobbs Said She Feels Pressure to Never Have a ‘Sick Day’ While Filming
Hobbs, who most recently co-starred with Stephen Huszar in Hallmark’s “Navigating Christmas,” said the 2021 holiday movie she was shooting at the time of her miscarriage was not a Hallmark project. That year, she starred in UPtv’s “The Picture of Christmas,” per IMDb.
Hobbs was already a mom to three children at the time of her miscarriage. She has a daughter, Wylie, now 17, and son Kingston, 12, with ex-husband Teren Oddo. In May 2020, she and her second husband, James Neate, welcomed their son Jones.
Jones was born at home and his birth was so “fast and furious,” she told podcast host Sarah Parkhurst, that when she and Neate decided to try again for another baby, she wasn’t sure her body was ready.
“(Jones’ birth) was a pretty violent and aggressive and fast labor and afterwards I just felt like he broke me,” she said, adding that when she got pregnant months later, “I just felt that something didn’t feel right about it. My body hadn’t healed yet.”
In a September 2021 Instagram post, she revealed for the first time that she’d had a miscarriage while filming the previous March, calling the three-week shoot “one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.”
Hobbs wrote, “One night I was filming on location and I noticed bleeding had started. I knew it wasn’t good. Not only was I not in the comfort of my home, I had only an outhouse on location to use.”
Telling Parkhurst that they were filming “in the middle of nowhere” with only porta-potties for bathrooms, she decided not to tell anyone on set.
“In my job, I can’t have a sick day,” she said. “If I’m sick, I’m on set, I’m still working. You look around at 200 people and they’re all paying their bills. I feel responsible as the lead actress for their livelihood as well.”
But eventually, the emotional and physical turmoil was too much to keep to herself, Hobbs said, explaining that she confided in “a couple of females on set” in the wardrobe and hair department.
“They were amazing,” she said. “They told the producer, they didn’t tell the director, which I also thought was interesting. But they just kind of facilitated, making sure that I had what I needed, that I could take breaks if I needed to for a moment.”
She continued, “I mean, it was terrible because I was filming, like, a love story — Christmas! Happy!” But for the most part (while) I was miscarrying, like, I was going to the bathroom and then I was filming and smiling and doing my dialogue and getting through it minute by minute. It’s pretty crazy what us women do.”
Christmas Movie Director Told Chelsea Hobbs That She Looked Too Sad On Set
In hindsight, Hobbs said she wishes she had been more vocal about what she was going through during her miscarriage, especially when she was told she wasn’t looking “happy” enough.
“The director said to me, ‘The editors are telling me that you’re looking very sad,'” she recalled. “And he was like, ‘It really has to be happy, you’re falling in love.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, I’m sorry.’ Now I wish, looking back, that I would have told him, ‘Well I am sad. I’m going through this.'”
Eventually, the “Dream Moms” star did get pregnant again and gave birth to her daughter Lucy in early 2022. However, Lucy was born nearly two months early at just 3.8 pounds and spent many weeks in the NICU. Both experiences took an emotional toll on Hobbs, she said, and she now encourages women to seek whatever help they can get to process and heal from traumas related to pregnancy and delivery.
She told Parkhurst, “I know that we’ve come a long way in this regard, but therapy is so important and for anybody to think they can go through any type of trauma or any type of pregnancy loss or pregnancy difficulties,” she told Parkhurst.
“We just don’t have the tools naturally, for the most part, to deal with this type of situation on our own and then with each other,” she continued. “It’s crazy to think that we’d be able to, so I think it’s really, really important.”