Emma Roberts covers the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. She’s promoting various projects, but mostly she’s just talking about the one thing people are actually interested in, which is her pregnancy. The Cosmo writer had interviewed Emma years ago, and the interviewer tried to make Emma sound like a hidden genius who “quoted Didion, Rilke, and Solnit from memory and held writers in the highest reverence.” That line made me chuckle. I mean, maybe Emma is that person. But probably not. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
The infantilizing narrative around her: “It’s funny, because I think people to this day think I’m 19, even though I’m turning 30. I don’t know if it’s about growing up as Julia Roberts’ niece or if it’s because I’ve been doing this since I was so young that people see me as younger. There’s always been a disconnect between the private me and the public me. In Hollywood, the public decides who you are and then they’ll decide if you get to change or not. That’s been disheartening. If you want to come out and say, “But wait, this is who I am,” it’s rarely perceived well or people think, I don’t want to hear that story. I want the old story because it’s juicier or it makes me feel better, or whatever the reasons are.
How she’s been dealing with 2020: “That’s become such a loaded question in 2020. Long story short: I am hungry and tired. Food and sleep do not abide by the normal laws when you’re pregnant. But I’m healthy, which is the thing I’m most grateful for. To see my body change inside and out so drastically has been a wild experience. Surprising and beautiful. Then again, some days I feel like I’m being hijacked by something.
Life-changing self-care: “I’ve really gotten to take care of myself for me, instead of for a movie or for a show or for an event. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve had this much time off since I was 12 years old. Some days are a struggle. This year has been a struggle, for everybody, in different ways and at different levels, but I’ve gotten to really reassess what self-care means to me. To have days when I can really turn inward and focus on myself has been life-changing, truly. Digging deep is a beautiful and sometimes difficult and harsh experience. Because I can go years being on autopilot of getting the next job and doing the next thing and, Oh, I’ll take care of myself after I accomplish this. Or, Oh, I’ll spend time with my family after I do that. This year, it’s been like, Okay, later is now.”
Whether she wanted kids when she was younger: “Ever since I was little, I wanted to have a baby, in theory. When I was a kid, I begged my mom to have another baby. The day she brought my sister home from the hospital, I remember holding her, wanting to dress and play with her. At 16, I thought, By the time I’m 24, I’ll be married with kids. And then I was 24 and I was like, Remember when I said I would be married with kids by now? With work, especially with acting—the travel, the hours—it’s not always conducive to settling down in a traditional way.
She had/has endo: “It really started to come to the forefront of my mind when, a few years ago, I learned that I’ve had undiagnosed endometriosis since I was a teenager. I always had debilitating cramps and periods, so bad that I would miss school and, later, have to cancel meetings. 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. But by then, it had affected my fertility. I was told, “You should probably freeze your eggs or look into other options.” I said, “I’m working right now. I don’t have time to freeze my eggs.” To be honest, I was also terrified. Just the thought of going through that and finding out, perhaps, that I wouldn’t be able to have kids….I did freeze my eggs eventually, which was a difficult process.
She got pregnant when she stopped thinking about her fertility: “It sounds cheesy, but the moment that I stopped thinking about it, we got pregnant. But even then, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Things can go wrong when you’re pregnant. That’s something you don’t see on Instagram. So I kept it to myself, my family, and my partner, not wanting to make grand plans if it wasn’t going to work out. This pregnancy made me realize that the only plan you can have is that there is no plan.
She goes on and on and a lot of it first-time pregnancy/first-time motherhood stuff (so many women act like they invented all of it the first time around), and I really think she’ll probably launch some motherhood-lifestyle brand in a year or something. That’s the way she sounds, like Eva Amurri only… somehow, not *as* annoying. I also think it’s interesting that while Emma throws in a “we” here and there, she never refers to Garrett Hedlund by name, and she (at times) sounds a little bit like she’s preparing to be a single mom. Which I don’t hate – I feel like Garrett sounds very unreliable, and she seems fine with raising this kid on her own if it comes to that. I didn’t know about her endo either.
.@RobertsEmma for @Cosmopolitan 💫
📸: @SashaSamsonovaFULL INTERVIEW: https://t.co/0dyjEq3a9r pic.twitter.com/EuA1aLXYiW
— Cosmopolitan (@Cosmopolitan) November 11, 2020
Cover courtesy of Cosmo, IG courtesy of Emma Roberts.
People think she’s young because, like Selena Gomez & Lily Collins, she just has one of those late teen/early 20s type faces. I actually liked what she said here even though in general she comes across as an entitled little brat. (That’s not even mentioning the awful domestic violence towards her last partner… poor Evan Peters). But ignoring or dismissing women’s health issues is so common it’s unreal and I like that she highlighted her experiences here. And this is a wealthy, well off white woman we are talking about, just imagine if she were a WOC?
I was thinking, the most interesting thing she said was she didn’t get taken seriously until she went to a female Dr. I think that experience is all too common.
I actually think she came off great in the interview.
I don’t know if i actually have read stuff and thought – brat, or if she has the “reputation” of brat, which can be a real thing or not.
And i loved that she talked about being not taken seriously medically, and switching doctors after years of being ignored.
It is a huge thing for women, and frankly a much bigger thing for minorities.
Glad she mentioned it.
I really can’t with her. Just because she’s pregnant does not suddenly mean she’s not an entitled brat.
Also, I hate hate hate it when women say they get pregnant after they “forgot” or stopped thinking about their fertility. It suggests that a women’s ability to get pregnant has to do with her mind and that it’s her fault if she’s stressing out about it too much or thinking about it. I’m sure she’s not suggesting that here, but stories like this are so dismissive and place blame on the woman.
This story is confusing. So we’re rewriting history? Because I thought this was an oops baby and now it sounds like she’s been playing around with her fertility so was she trying to get pregnant with Evan Peters? As far as we know she’s never been super serious with anyone and usually women don’t think about babies and fertility until they want to take that next step and they have trouble. When you freeze eggs you need to go hyper on fertilization right? That’s how Kim K got pregnant (she was doing the freezing thing and her and Kanye apparently don’t know how condoms or IVF works). Anyway this story is confusing because it makes it sound like she’s been trying for a baby and by all accounts this was an accidental pregnancy.
That said I love Emma. Yeah she seems like a MAJOR b but her characters give me life. Chanel will always be one of my favorites. She just does b-tch so well. She should just lean into it because she’s really good at it.
We don’t know her health issues. She could have PCOS and have been told she was very unlikely to get pregnant naturally. Who knows.