Ali Wong Gets Real About Her Miscarriage and Body After C-Section

Ali Wong—best known for her two comedy specials, Baby Cobra, released in 2016, and Hard Knock Wife, released in 2018, as well as her role in Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe—knows a thing or two about seeing the levity in life. But in a recent interview with Health magazine, she gave some serious insight into how she dealt with a miscarriage and accepted her post-baby body and what it’s like being a working a mom to her two young daughters.

Wong, who currently stars in ABC’s American Housewife, did both of her comedy specials while she was pregnant. She was pleasantly surprised to find that, instead of focusing on her gender or race, her audience was mostly interested in her pregnancy and how she spoke about her prior miscarriage.

While she wasn’t afraid to open up about her miscarriage, she told Health she did regret telling people about her pregnancy so early on. “I didn’t realize miscarrying was a thing that could happen. That’s why I told everybody,” she explained. “I told the lady who cleans my house, and when she found out I was seven weeks along, she told me I shouldn’t be telling people. Now I know why. It’s because then you have to tell everyone the bad news.”

Growing up in a very communicative household, Wong was taught to talk about her feelings. But even with supportive -in-laws, she was nervous to tell them about her miscarriage, worried they’d think “their son had married a bad seed,” she said. Luckily they didn’t, but others were not as understanding in their responses. “They will ask if it’s because you had sushi or you were performing too much. They want to point to some cause and don’t realize how bad that makes you feel,” Wong said in the interview.

Now, the mom of two is very open about asking for help when it comes to juggling work and being a mom—and dealing with the expectations of what a post-pregnancy body should look like. Figuring out how to embrace her body after two c-sections was a lesson Wong said it took her longest to learn, but she acknowledges that’s she’s learned to accept it for what it is. “If I am naked, you can see my belly is a little lopsided over my scar. I have a keloid thing that runs in my family. Some women will have scars that look like little strings of floss. Mine looks like a finger,” she told Health magazine. “It bummed me out for a while, until one day, I was like, ‘It is what it is. I got two beautiful girls out of it.’”

Wong’s first book, Dear Girls, which is written as letters from Wong to her daughters, is out next Tuesday, October 15. Her inspiration for the book was how she felt after her own dad passed away. “When my dad passed away, his friend gave me a letter that my dad had written to me. It was relatively short, and I realized there was so much more I wanted to learn about who he was,” she said in the interview. “He once told me a story about getting into a fight when he was a kid, and I loved that story so much because I could never imagine my dad getting into a fight. So my book is a lot about who I was before I had them.”

October is Pregnancy Loss and Infant Awareness month. If you or anyone you know is dealing with a loss, read our tips on how to support them.

Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances.