Nancy Kerrigan on Opening Up About ‘Devastating’ Miscarriages: Supporting Others Has ‘Been Amazing’
Nancy Kerrigan didn’t know what to expect when she decided to share her fertility struggles with the world.
“I didn’t [bring it up] because I wanted to make any kind of statement, they just asked me what was most important and that was,” the two-time Olympic figure skater, 47, told PEOPLE after Monday’s episode of Dancing with the Stars of opening up on the ABC reality show last week about suffering “at least” six miscarriages on her way to becoming a mother of three.
But Kerrigan says that many people reached out to her after the segment aired last week.
“It was amazing,” said the skater, who is mom to sons Matthew, 21, and Brian, 12, and daughter Nicole, 8, with husband Jerry Solomon. “Some people said, My husband and I had this conversation that we’d never had before and we didn’t know. Is that how you felt?’ I think it’s great to be able to open something up for someone else.”
For more from Kerrigan - including how she coped with the media attention after she was clubbed in the knee just weeks before the 1994 Winter Olympics - pick up the current issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now
The Olympian opens up in the current issue of PEOPLE about her miscarriages and has said she thinks it’s important for people to talk about their fertility issues.
“It’s something you didn’t talk about then. People didn’t talk about miscarriages, so I felt very alone,” she says in the issue of her own “shame” during the late ’90s and early 2000s. “I think talking about any issue makes things less stressful. It helps you to realize you’re not the only one and that other people go through the same things.”
Dancing with the Stars airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.
