Giving birth is never easy, but sometimes, the postpartum experience can be even harder. Although there's definitely still a stigma around the subject, more and more women have been opening up about their struggle with postpartum depression, and that includes celebrity moms. Moms who feel they might be suffering from PPD often search for answers and help behind the scenes. Others have made it a point to be transparent about what the journey with postpartum depression looks like, impacting many women who are going through the same thing.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 9 women will experience depression after birth in the United States, with that number increasing to 1 in 5 in certain states. It can be scary and heartbreaking not to be blissfully happy with a newborn, and it makes sense that many moms don't want to talk about the feelings they're experiencing — especially when they're mentally in such a dark place.
But for women suffering from postpartum depression following childbirth, it can be a huge relief to find out that others have gone through the same thing and ended up on the other side.
Here are celebrity moms who have been open about struggling with postpartum depression. It's a lot more common than people might think, and hopefully, these women sharing their stories will help others come forward and get the help they need.
Princess Diana

When Prince Harry and Prince William's mom was still alive, she spoke openly about her PPD struggle — even at a time when nobody was talking about it. In a 1995 interview with the BBC, Diana said that she received a "great deal" of treatment for it at the time, but still felt that people thought she was attention-seeking.
"I was unwell with postnatal depression, which no one ever discusses, postnatal depression, you have to read about it afterwards, and that in itself was a bit of a difficult time," Diana revealed. "You'd wake up in the morning feeling you didn't want to get out of bed, you felt misunderstood, and just very, very low in yourself."
Reese Witherspoon
While talking to Jameela Jamil on her I Weigh podcast in 2020, Reese Witherspoon explained that she's had a different experience with all three of her kids — Ava, Deacon, and Tennessee — but at times, her depression has been bad.
“[With] one kid, I had kind of mild postpartum, and [with] one kid, I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all. And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all," she said. "No one explained that to me. I was 23 years old when I had my first baby and nobody explained to me that when you wean a baby, your hormones go into the toilet. I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my whole life. It was scary.”
Cardi B
Cardi B usually seems like the life of the party, but after giving birth to daughter Kulture, she struggled with PPD. The rapper opened up about it in an interview with Harper's Bazaar in February 2021, admitting that at first she thought she'd avoid postpartum depression.
"I thought I was going to avoid it," Cardi said. "When I gave birth, the doctor told me about postpartum, and I was like, 'Well, I'm doing good right now, I don't think that’s going to happen.' But out of nowhere, the world was heavy on my shoulders."
Serena Williams
In an Instagram post she shared in August 2018, Serena Williams got real about her struggle with "postpartum emotions" after welcoming her first daughter, Olympia. For the tennis star, she found that communication helped the best.
It's great to hear that she figured out what works for her.
Behati Prinsloo
Behati Prinsloo has two daughters with Adam Levine — Dusty Rose and Gio Grace — and she hasn't been shy about the fact that she battled postpartum depression after welcoming her first child. And fortunately, it sounds as if Victoria's Secret was really good about letting the model go back to work in her own time.
"After my first baby, I had a little postpartum depression and it was difficult to get back into normal life, but after the second one everything felt so much easier; it was easier for me to work out, breastfeeding was easier," Behati told Net-A-Porter in January 2021. "No one pressured me to return to work, not even Victoria’s Secret, who I was under contract with — they never asked me when I was going to be back."
Vanessa Lachey
In 2013, Vanessa Lachey took to her since-deleted blog to open up about how she felt after her 6-year-old son, Camden, was born in 2012. After she was home with him for a few days, she said the depression really set in — and it wasn't until she took some time for herself that she felt better.
"I felt lost, unloved, alone and at my wits end. It's weird, too, because I have an amazing and supportive husband, his loving family and wonderful friends," she wrote. "But at that moment … I felt like NO ONE understood me."
Celine Dion
Celine Dion has three kids: René-Charles and twins Nelson and Eddy. After welcoming her twins, she had a hard time when she came home from the hospital.
"Some of the first days after I came home, I was a little outside myself," she told French magazine Gala. "I had no appetite and that bothered me."
She added: "My mother remarked that she noticed I had moments of lifelessness, but reassured me that this was entirely normal. One moment, tremendous happiness; the next, fatigue sets in, and I cried for no reason, and then that took care of itself. It's for things like that after having a baby that mothers really need emotional support."
Gisele Bündchen
In an interview with People, Gisele Bündchen, who shares two children, Benjamin and Vivian, with husband Tom Brady, revealed that she felt guilty for working after having children, adding that her adjustment to motherhood was a difficult one.
"I had all this horrible, self-imposed guilt," she said at the time. "I thought what a terrible mother I was for leaving my child even for like a day.”
Amy Poehler

In her memoir, Yes Please, Amy Poehler said she wished she had tried to treat her postpartum depression after giving birth to her first son, Archie, in 2008.
"I have never tried antidepressants," she wrote in her book. "I probably should have after my first kid, when my postpartum blues felt deeper than I could handle."
Lena Headey
Lena Headey dominated television as Cersei in Game of Thrones, but as she filmed the show's first season, she was battling PPD after giving birth to her first son, Wylie. In a 2017 interview with Net-A-Porter, Lena admitted that filming GoT was tough when she had so many other things going on.
"I was postnatally depressed but I didn't know it," she said at the time. "I saw a doctor for the medical check, and I just burst into tears. She said I was postnatally depressed and I went, 'Am I? Why is that?' I saw a great guy and he sorted me out, but I did the first year on Game of Thrones in that space, figuring out motherhood and going through a weird time personally. It was tricky."
Alyssa Milano
In an essay she wrote for Time in 2018, Alyssa Milano said her mental health took a nosedive when the birth of her son, Milo, didn't go as planned. She revealed that she checked herself into a psych ward at the time and got the help she needed when her anxiety was out of control.
"Every day, I would drive to work and think about all the ways that Milo could die in the hands of his caretakers," she wrote. "Every night, after working 16-hour days, after I was finally able to hold my child and put him to sleep, my day’s anxiety would culminate into a debilitating anxiety attack."
Amber Portwood
In 2019, Amber Portwood was open about her postpartum depression on Teen Mom OG, revealing that she was struggling with her mental health after giving birth to her second child, James, in 2018. Amber admitted she had thoughts of harming herself at the time. Amber didn't think that MTV gave her enough time to cope with her new reality, and she was vocal about that fact.
Tess Holliday
Model Tess Holliday has been open about her PPD struggle, especially with her social media followers. In 2018, she shared an update on her feelings, even though they aren't always positive. Tess admitted that even two years after her son was born, she was still struggling. Though people have told her that her posts are too negative, she keeps the conversation going.
Amy Davidson
In a 2017 post on her blog, actress Amy Davidson, who's mom to Lennox, opened up about what she went through after her son was born, revealing that she is "grateful" for what that experience taught her.
"Sometimes it's hard to recall how challenging my postpartum depression was and what I feel like I missed out on, but I can't change what happened and those were the cards I was dealt," she wrote. "I do believe that incredibly difficult and emotional time period has helped mold me into the mommy I am today and for that I am truly grateful."
Jaime King
When Jaime King, who is a mom to James and Leo, gave birth to both of her little ones, she seriously struggled. And in a 2017 interview with Galore, she admitted that her endometriosis, PCOS, and multiple miscarriages only made the experience more difficult for her.
"I isolated myself," she said. "I was anxious all the time, I felt like I was unlovable. I couldn’t even think straight. I had to live through an entire pregnancy where I didn't know if my child was going to live or die. I couldn't even process the trauma because I was too busy trying to keep him and myself alive."
Elle Macpherson
In 2004, model Elle Macpherson said in an interview with Herald Sun that when her second son, Aurelius, was born in 2003, she found that taking a break was the best thing for her.
"I took the steps I needed to take in order to recover," she said at the time, reports Vogue. "The truth was, I just did what I needed to do and addressed a lot of issues that needed addressing and had a well-earned break, which I really needed as well. I had never done anything like that in my life and that's about it. I think it was made out to be a lot more dramatic and more insidious that it was."
Nikki Bella
Former wrestling star Nikki Bella welcomed her first child with fiancé Artem Chigvintsev, Matteo, in July 2020, and months later, she revealed that she'd struggled with postpartum depression so bad that she felt like she "hated" her partner.
"I didn’t realize at week seven, you kind of come out of your baby blues and … go two different paths," she said on her Total Bellas podcast. "You go the path of being healthy or you go down the path of being depressed, and that depression path can be a really dark, deep hole. I was starting to feel invisible."
Shay Mitchell
For Shay Mitchell, it wasn't feeling depressed after her daughter, Atlas, was born — it was while she was still pregnant that it really got to her.
"I think it's really interesting that pre-partum depression or feelings of isolation in pregnancy are not more vastly discussed," the actress said in an interview with Hatch. "Feeling that I was alone in my depression compounded my state of mind, but [I] have found since sharing the news publicly that many women feel as I did."
Christina Perri

After welcoming her first daughter, Carmella, Christina Perri told People that she was really sad, especially after she stopped breastfeeding.
"That got me the hardest when I stopped breastfeeding around Christmas. I was so sad and so dark," she said. "We're almost made to pretend it's not happening, like, 'It's fine. I've got this.'"
Christina added that talking about her depression helped, saying: "It made me feel so much better. All the women said 'me too, me too, me too' and really got me through it. I've got my mommy tribe that got bigger because of that."
Florence Henderson

The late Brady Bunch star was vocal about her struggle with postpartum depression. In her 2011 memoir, Life Is Not a Stage, Florence Henderson revealed she had postpartum depression, and that she often felt a good bit of guilt about it.
"When you're depressed with a new baby, everybody tells you that you should be so happy and should feel so good," Florence wrote. "So add guilt to the list, a horrible guilt that I was not happy and joyful when I should have been. I would see other mothers with babies who were on top of it, and it made me feel worse, totally inferior."
Loren Brovarnik
90 Day Fiancé star Loren Brovarnik welcomed her first child, Shai, in 2020, and on Instagram, she shared her battle with depression after his birth.
“I’ve felt excited, exhausted, scared, in pain and every other emotion you can think of!" she wrote. "I’ve experienced some postpartum depression and I’ve struggled with judgment and people sharing unsolicited advice. I’ve been a nervous nelly."
Jade Roper
As Bachelor alum Jade Roper shared on Instagram, after welcoming her second child, Brooks — who was born unexpectedly on her closet floor — she struggled with postpartum depression.
"Fact is, I was fighting a dark depression for the first 6 months after Brooks was born and no one would have known it," she admitted.
Maren Morris
Country star Maren Morris welcomed her first son in 2020, and in an interview with This Morning, she shared that after Hayes was born, she turned to teletherapy to help her through a dark time.
"You're trying to become a new mother and good parent and do everything right and you just feel like you suck at every level," she said.