It’s estimated a staggering one in ten Australian women are living with endometriosis, according to Endometriosis Australia. The chronic disease, which causes abnormal uterine tissue to grow on other organs, can present debilitating symptoms including painful periods, heavy bleeding and in some cases infertility.
We’ve rounded up celebrities who’ve spoken out on their personal struggles with endometriosis to bring shed light on this debilitating condition.
From Halsey to Amy Schumer and Alexa Chung, read what these A-listers have to say about their personal battles with endometriosis.
Annastacia Palaszczuk
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk shared her experience with the insidious disease.
Speaking at a High Tea fundraising event in June 2023 for Endometrioisis Australia, the premier shared that she didn’t receive a diagnosis for her symptoms until she was 34.
“When I was first diagnosed, there was no brochure or information. And I didn’t know what it all meant. I was just told you’re going to have an operation,” she said.
“But my symptoms beforehand were, I just got up every day and did my job, didn’t really think anything. I just thought it was normal.”
When she eventually received a diagnosis, Palaszczuk, 53, said the endometriosis had spread “up under my lungs, wrapped around my bowel. It was quite all through my body. It was very hard.”
She also touched on how a lack of awareness for the disease often leads women to underplay their symptoms.
“I didn’t know you could take a day off. I had my keyhole surgery on Friday for endometriosis. Back at work on Monday, still having crippling pain. Just went to work, did my job. Women are very strong. They just plough through. But it does go to show that if we can give more awareness out there, you’re really helping people,” she said.
The premier also detailed a plan for the Queensland government to improve access to support for those diagnosed with the disease in rural and remote areas.
“People don’t want to talk about women’s health. And that’s why as a government, Minister [Shannon] Fentiman and myself, and our cabinet, are really passionate about having a women’s health strategy,” Palaszczuk said.
Emma Roberts
Emma Roberts dealt with the symptoms of endometriosis since she was a teenager, however, she didn’t receive a diagnosed until her late 20s—but by that point, the condition had already affected her fertility, leading her to freeze her eggs.
In an interview for Cosmopolitan magazine, Roberts revealed that as an adult, having kids became a priority when Roberts was diagnosed with endometriosis.
“I always had debilitating cramps and periods, so bad that I would miss school and, later, have to cancel meetings,” Roberts revealed. “I mentioned this to my doctor, who didn’t look into it and sent me on my way because maybe I was being dramatic? In my late 20s, I just had a feeling I needed to switch to a female doctor. It was the best decision. She ran tests, sent me to a specialist. Finally, there was validation that I wasn’t being dramatic.”
Roberts also admitted that speaking about the illness and her fertility with other women helped her to process the news. “All of a sudden, there was a new world of conversation about endometriosis, infertility, miscarriages, fear of having kids,” she said. “I was so grateful to find out I was not alone in this. I hadn’t done anything ‘wrong’ after all.”
Amy Schumer
In 2019, Amy Schumer welcomed her first child into the world. However, the birth was fraught with difficulties due to her endometriosis and she underwent a C-section at 39 weeks.
At the time of her pregnancy, Amy called out the lack of funding for endometriosis research on social media saying:
“Amy is still pregnant and puking because money rarely goes to medical studies for women such as hyperemesis or endometriosis and instead goes to things like d**ks not getting hard enough or old guys who want harder d**ks.”
Mandy Moore
Mandy Moore revealed that she almost underwent surgery for her endometriosis before discovering that she was pregnant with her first child.
“Because of the issue with my uterus, I was very hesitant to believe it and put any stock in it,” Moore told Romper in January 2021.
After meeting with a fertility specialist, they recommended she undergo surgery for endometriosis before attempting to full pregnant.
“I was fully prepared to go have surgery and fix my uterus and hopefully get rid of the endometriosis, if it was there,” she said, in the same interview. As we now know, the This Is Us actor managed to fall pregnant without having the surgery, and welcomed her son August, into the world in February, 2021.
Jaime King
Actress Jaime King has spoken openly about her struggles with endometriosis, PCOS, IVF and miscarriages which have spanned the course of several years.
“I was hiding what I was going through for so long, and I hear about so many women going through what I went through. If I’m open about it, hopefully it won’t be so taboo to talk about it,” she told People in 2020.
Back in 2017, the actress spoke candidly with Galore magazine, revealing that she almost lost her children due to her endometriosis and PCOS.
“I thought that because my womb didn’t work the way I was taught it should work, I was broken. We are told as women that our great value is to be able to carry life, to carry a child. If we’re fertile and abundant, we’re a worthy goddess. But for some reason, those parts don’t function for some of us,” King explained.
The actress currently has two children with ex-husband Kyle Newman — Leo Thames (6) and James Knight (8).
Mae Whitman
Actor Mae Whitman previously spoke out about her struggle with endometriosis in an Instagram post in 2019.
“Basically anyone that even vaguely knows me knows this one thing about me: I have had for my entire life, the MOST violently painful extremely intense pain with every single period,” she wrote.
The Good Girls star openly praised her doctor, Iris Kerin Orbuch, M.D., who co-wrote a book called Beating Endo. Whitman shared that, thanks to Dr. Orbuch’s surgery, she was finally feeling hopeful about a future free from the pain she’d experienced for 20 years.
Chrissy Teigen
Always one to keep it real, Chrissy Teigen showed off her endometriosis scars on Instagram as a message of self-love. The model posted a mirror picture of her bare torso to her Instagram story, which showed off the scars from both an endometriosis surgery and breast implant removal scars.
“Happy Valentine’s Day. Love yourself!!” she wrote. “Bitch has been throuuugh it.”
It’s also not the first time Teigen has spoken out about her endometriosis struggles, revealing on Feb. 3, that she’d be going into surgery. “my little jack would have been born this week so I’m a bit off. I truly feel kicks in my belly, but it’s not phantom,” she wrote. “I have surgery for endometriosis tomorrow…but the period feeling this month is exactly like baby kicks. sigh.”
Halsey
Singer-songwriter Halsey has spoken out about endometriosis since 2016, posting about her struggles on social media. In a now-deleted Instagram post, she shared that she had undergone multiple surgeries for the condition, which caused her tremendous amounts of pain.
But it was in 2018, when she delivered a powerful speech about her personal endometriosis diagnosis—after having an unexpected miscarriage—that could the world’s attention. Halsey implored other women struggling with chronic illnesses to “keep f**king fighting.”
“Keep talking to your friends, keep supporting your loved ones, to the women in your life, make sure that they don’t feel ashamed to talk about their reproductive rights, to talk about their reproductive experiences, because the only way for this—for us to gain control of this—is to speak about it.”
In April 2022, Halsey warned fans that they may go MIA after being hospitalised for their endometriosis.
“I am doing the best I can under difficult circumstances,” they wrote on Instagram, before explaining that they need to put their health first right now.
Olivia Culpo
Olivia Culpo got candid about her personal health struggles via her Instagram Stories. The 28-year-old model shared on her experience with “the most excruciatingly painful cramps/periods,” telling fans for the first time that she has endometriosis.
“I’ve never publicly said this before but I have endometriosis,” she wrote. “Anyone else reading this have Endo? No fun.”
After receiving so many messages from fans who also suffered from endometriosis, Culpo said: “If you are having very painful periods and you are not being diagnosed with what you think could be endometriosis, definitely do your research because if you don’t discover that you have this, it could get in the way of your fertility. You could have tissue growing in areas that you really shouldn’t have that would interfere with maybe getting pregnant someday, your eggs could be getting damaged.”
Daisy Ridley
Daisy Ridley, 27, has been living with endometriosis for over half her life, having been diagnosed at the young age of 15. In a since deleted Instagram post, the Star Wars actor revealed that she’d undergone laparoscopic surgery for the condition, and that her pain returned years down the line (though not as bad).
She also urged others to do what they could to see doctors and specialists in order to receive a diagnosis rather than suffer in silence.
Whoopi Goldberg
Iconic comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg has openly spoken out about how she copes with her endometriosis for over a decade now. The Sister Act and Ghost star addressed it at the Endo Foundation’s Blossom Ball back in 2009.
“Listen here is the thing I came in today. I had endometriosis 30 years ago maybe. I was very, very lucky. I had an intelligent doctor who sort of knew what was going on and said well, here take this stuff and he cleared it up. I was very lucky.”
Since then, Goldberg went on to create a cannabis product line aimed at helping individuals with menstrual pain, including endometriosis.
Lena Dunham
In 2018, Girls star Lena Dunham was forced to make the difficult decision to undergo a hysterectomy due to acute endometriosis. She was just 31 years-of-age at the time.
In an essay for Vogue U.S., Lena detailed her “years of complex surgeries measuring in the double digits” that ultimately resulted in her opting to have her cervix and uterus removed as a last resort.
Samantha Wills
After tolerating unbearable period pain for years, Australian creative entrepreneur Samantha Wills was referred to an obstetrician-gynecologist. The specialist discovered two fibroids (growths on the uterus) and Samantha underwent surgery to remove stage 4 overgrown endometriosis.
Her advice for other women who may be suffering from the disease?
“The body is always talking to us. It whispers first, then it gets fed up with our obnoxiousness and is left with no option but to scream at us… No matter how insignificant it may seem, IF YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR A SIGN to go and get it checked out, this is it,” the designer shared in an Instagram post.
Alexa Chung
Bringing some dark humour to her endometriosis diagnosis, Alexa Chung joked back in 2019: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member, but here I am.”
For Endometriosis Awareness Month in 2020, the British model took to Instagram to call for more funding for research saying:
“Why don’t they know what it is? Why don’t they know how to cure it? Could it be to do with a gender healthcare bias? Also probably doesn’t help that ‘endometriosis’ is the longest and most boring word to read.”
Gabrielle Union
Actor, author, and activist Gabrielle Union has always been vocal about her struggles with infertility, as well as the root cause of her multiple miscarriages: adenomyosis.
“Toward the end of my fertility journey, I finally got some answers. Everyone said, ‘You’re a career woman, you’ve prioritised 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. The reality is I actually have adenomyosis,” Union said at the annual BlogHer conference, according to People. “The gag is I had it in my early 20s.”
Similar to endometriosis, Union’s condition causes lining to grow inside her uterine wall rather than outside the uterus. Sometimes referred to as internal endometriosis, it also causes pain, nausea, and heavy menstruation.
Emma Watkins
In 2018, Australian performer Emma Watkins, AKA the much-adored yellow-skivvied member of The Wiggles, released a video statement over Facebook when she had to withdraw from a tour due to needing to have an urgent operation for her endometriosis.
“I would like to send my love to all the other women experiencing symptoms of endometriosis. It is such a debilitating and painful disease and I urge anyone suffering with symptoms of endometriosis to put your health first and get a diagnosis so that you are in the best position to manage this crippling disease,” Emma wrote in a written statement accompanying the video.
Thessy Batsinilas
Speaking with marie claire about her personal experience with endometriosis, Creative Director and Co-Owner of Australian fashion brand Sabo Skirt, Thessy Batsinilas said:
“Living with endometriosis has been a big life lesson for me. I’ve learnt that if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. I have learnt not to take no’ for an answer. I’ve learnt to live with a painful disease and push my physical and emotional threshold – I’ve learnt that living with endo has made me stronger, not weaker. When I woke up from surgery and got told that a lot of my reproductive organs were removed due to the severity of my endo, I learnt that I was completely infertile. I learnt that women who endure IVF are stronger and more determined than they’ll ever know. I’ve learnt that through all of this, the biggest miracle of all is my daughter.”
Padma Lakshmi
Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi aptly summed up the experience many women have with endometriosis describing it as a “chronic illness in which tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus, grows outside of it, strangling your internal organs” on Instagram.
For more information or support visit Endometriosis Australia.
