Gabrielle Union Discovered the Cause of Her "Eight or Nine" Miscarriages
Hi Hey there, how's it going? Good. Thanks so much for being here today, it's a pleasure to meet you. It's very nice to meet you. Please sit down. Sure. Have a seat. You're watching EW lightbulb, presented by Glade. Gabrielle Union thank you so much for being here. << Thank you for having me.>> <> << I think people associated me with . Being a teenager for so long like, kind of like into my thirties. It was, it was a tough transition to be taken sort of seriously as an adult actor when your a grown **** person [LAUGH] Already and you were a grown **** person when doing the teen movies. That transition took a while and it's been a challenge, but you know, it was trying to like okay, now I did that, like, what else can I do, what else is out there? Sure, it seems as if like right now, just in the last couple of years, you've had what seems to me like a really kind of incredibly rejuvenating portion of your career, you have Being Mary Jane and you just had a fantastic role in Top 5, is it a renaissance that's happening right now? It's nice, I'm like kale. Been around, bu they, you know, oh kale's good. [LAUGH] It's like, oh, that's nice. I need kale's publicist. Because kale is everywhere now. It's been nice to be sort of rediscovered in an but at the same time, I always kind of kept working so my accountant wasn't freaking out. I was sort of under the radar just enough. To kind of become bright and shiny and new all over again, which is, I'll take it. Your roles on Being Mary Jane and Top Five are so different in a lot of ways. Is your process sort of different depending on, on the type of role, or on? You know, a lot of it is who you're working with, and you have to listen. Like, most of comedy is listening and reacting. And well timing comes in, in as well. But depending on who you're working with. Working with Chris Rock is different than working with Kevin Hart is different than working with Eddie Murphy is different than working with Martin Lawrence. They all have different beats and their timing is so different. It's like a double, it's like getting in on a double dutch. So you're like, okay, okay, oh, here I go. Now I'm in. Now I'm in the group. Now I'm in the group until you scrub and then you gotta hop out True. True And start over again. Yeah. A lot of it is I watch, I'm a, I'm a, I love to study people, as a sociology major, I did a lot of field study where I'm just. Watching people and taking notes, and I sort of use that in, you know, in, you know, with my job. It's interesting, but like, it's to each time in a ways, sort of, like an entirely new ex, ex, experience [CROSSTALK] Well, and you had, I had to be an action hero ,and a love interest, and a victim, and a hero, and shoot people. [LAUGH] And, you know. Be like why didn't he call me? [LAUGH] Like itsy-breezy but, like those are, you know like, the Michael Bay jobs. Those are my favorite. Because I get, you know, I was growing up as an athlete, I get to be physical. I get to kiss cute boys. I get to you know, do cool stunts. And there's some acting in there. Sure, sure. One of the things that I really love about Mary Jane as a character is that, on one hand, here's someone who is so, from the outside, so well put together in in every way. I mean, literally, part of her job is being, you know, one of those. Well, together people you see on television, yet so much of it is also about the, fragility is the wrong word, but there is a lot of real emotion happening in her personal life. What's it like sort of exploring those 2 sides of the character on a weekly basis, really? Anytime you don't have to play a perfect character is awesome, so I love that she's freaking normal, you know what I mean? I love that she goes home and changes out of fabulous clothes into. You know, sweat pants and Uggs and takes out her cutlets. You know. Right. Comfy, comfy clothes. And, you know, wraps her hair. What's the collaboration like between you and Mara Brock Akil? Because I know that like, as she said before that the character takes, takes a certain amount from her life. I mean, like what's it been like sort of building that, that, that character together over the course of a couple seasons? Yeah, I mean, well, a lot of it is I just, I am like oh, that's what's happening. But like, if there's certain things like I'll, I'll ask. Like, certainly about wardrobe, or about intention, before the scene starts. Like, what the goals are, and where she's trying to head. And, we definitely collaborate. A lot of her isms are things that, you know, I've added, that Myra's like yes, go for it, yeah, that's good. But I mean the, the. More than anything I want her to be normal. I want people to go, oh, I do that like that's what I do. I mean I hadn't been that interested earlier in my career-car, I didn't even think to mine for the truth. It had not crossed my mind until later in life. I can see some of my past mistakes through. Hurt you know, through my character. When I was meeting with Maura and Celine about you know Mary Jane, this role that has changed my life so much and challenged me it was the exact moment that Whitney Houston passed away. And we were in the four seasons lounge and you literally see all these phones lighting up and people gasping and crying and running out. And at that moment I was just like what do I stand for? I wanna do good work, I wanna do, work that challenges me and that I'm proud of, and that hopefully, maybe through putting truth and honesty and realism, into my work, it gives at least a cool enough response from other people that they're like. She all right. [LAUGH] I mess with her. Like, she's cool. 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Gabrielle Union outlined her struggles with fertility in her must-read 2017 memoir We’re Going to Need More Wine, revealing that she’s had “eight or nine” miscarriages throughout the years.
Union, 45, expounded on the topic at the 2018 BlogHer conference in N.Y.C. on Aug. 8, explaining that when discussing her infertility, people often shamed her for not starting a family earlier. “Everyone said ‘You’re a career woman, you’ve prioritized your career, you waited too long and now you’re just too old to have a kid — and that’s on you for wanting a career.'"
But, as it turns out, there’s a real, medical reason Gabrielle was unable to have children: adenomyosis.
Adenomyosis is a type of endometriosis that results in painful and elongated periods and chronic pelvic pain.
“The gag is I had it in my early 20s,” Union said of her adenomyosis, adding that doctors were always reluctant to provide a diagnosis for her symptoms.
“Instead of diagnosing me they were like ‘Oh you have periods that last 9 or 10 days and you’re bleeding through overnight pads … perhaps there’s something more there,’” she recanted. “Every doctor I saw was like let me put you on birth control.”
Unsurprisingly, birth control did not get to the heart of Union’s issue.
“The pill can mask all kinds of things,” she told the crowd. “It is amazing at preventing pregnancy; not so great with addressing adenomyosis.”
Though Union cannot have biological children of her own, she’s the proud stepmother of her NBA player husband Dwayne Wade’s sons.
Union spoke with InStyle earlier this year about the bond she shares with Wade’s sons. “I would do anything for them,” she told us. "For all of us who have non-traditional families; for all of us who care for children that we did not birth, the nurturing and the care and the love will propel you to heights you didn’t think were possible."
