SINGAPORE – There appears to be a baby boom among celebrities during the pandemic.
And with everyone staying home and out of the public eye, and most projects halted, it has been easy for them to keep their pregnancies private. In the past year, even A-listers such as actresses Emma Stone and Scarlett Johannson have been able to keep their baby bumps under wraps.
Emmy Rossum and Sam Esmail
Actress Emmy Rossum, who kept her pregnancy under wraps until she gave birth in May, shared the first photo of her daughter on Instagram on Monday with a special Covid-19 message.
The picture showed her cradling her three-month-old, whose face was turned away from the camera.
She wrote: “When I was pregnant, I got vaccinated. Not only did we have a healthy, beautiful baby girl, but we also just learnt our daughter now has antibodies.
“In short, stop being an irresponsible idiot and get the vaccine.”
Rossum, 34, who starred in television series Shameless (2011 to 2021), had previously posted photos of her showing off her baby bump, including one with her and her husband, director- producer Sam Esmail.
The 43-year-old is the creator of the hit television series Mr. Robot (2015 to 2019) and this is their first child.
While Rossum has yet to share a picture where her baby’s face can be seen clearly, she had uploaded a snap of a tiny footprint, presumably of her daughter.
Mindy Kaling
The actress-director has kept not one, but two pregnancies secret.
Last October, she revealed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that she had given birth to her second child, Spencer, a month earlier.
“I’m telling it for the first time now, it feels so strange, but I gave birth to a baby boy on Sept 3. This is news to a lot of people,” said Kaling, 42.
She had been active on Instagram throughout her pregnancy and even posted a photo on the day she gave birth, posing in a kid’s playpen, without anyone noticing her baby bump.
She had also kept her first pregnancy a secret. Her daughter, Katherine, is now 2-1/2.
The star of comedy series The Mindy Project (2012 to 2017) has never named the father of her son or daughter. Even her children do not know.
Although many fans of The Office (2005 to 2013), which she had starred in, hoped that it was actor B.J. Novak, who played her love interest in the TV series, she clarified that he is the godfather to both kids.
Constance Wu and Ryan Kattner
Crazy Rich Asians (2018) star Constance Wu had a baby during the height of the pandemic last year. To this day, she has kept almost all details of her pregnancy and her first child private.
However, the 39-year-old star, whose boyfriend is Ryan Kattner, the frontman of rock band Man Man, has revealed an intimate detail about their baby girl.
In an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in May, she said: “She’s the best!
She has a full head of hair and a blue butt.
“There’s a thing, I had never heard of it before. It’s called a Mongolian spot. Apparently, it happens in a lot of Asian babies, and my boyfriend and I are both Asian. It’s where your butt is blue for the first two years of your life and then it just goes away.”
Kattner, who performs under the stage name Honus Honus, has even penned a song about his daughter’s butt.
Wu added: “I just think it’s a very special thing. It’s not something that, you know, she can show off when she’s walking down the street. Not that she’s walking yet.”
Emma Stone and Dave Mccary
Famously private with almost zero social media presence, actress Emma Stone not only secretly got married last year to comedian- director Dave McCary, but she also quietly had a baby this March.
The couple have not made any announcements about their wedding, which was postponed once, or their baby, reportedly a daughter named Louis Jean after her grandmother.
Stone, 32, who most recently starred in crime comedy Cruella, and McCary, 36, a former segment director on Saturday Night Live, got engaged in December 2019 and posted a rare photo together on his Instagram account.
In an interview with Elle magazine in September 2018, Stone opened up about wanting to have kids.
“My perspective about kids has changed as I’ve become older. I never babysat or anything. As a teenager, I was like, I’m never getting married, I’m never having kids. And then I got older and I was like, I really want to get married, I really want to have kids.”
Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake
In January, singer Justin Timberlake, 40, revealed during an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show that he and his wife, actress Jessica Biel, had welcomed their second son, Phineas, during the pandemic.
Phineas is now around one year old. The couple also have a six-year-old son, Silas.
“I had, like, a secret Covid baby,” Biel, 39, said on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard in June.
“It wasn’t like it was supposed to be a secret. It was just that Covid-19 happened and then I went to Montana with my family and never left.”
In a Father’s Day post on Instagram that month, Timberlake shared a photo of himself and his sons engrossed in a video game.
“Being a dad is better than I ever could have imagined,” he wrote. “Thankful to my dads and my grandfathers for leading the way, making the sacrifices for me to live out my dreams, and for teaching me that real life happens in all the little moments.”
Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost
Another fiercely private star without any social media accounts, Scarlett Johansson, 36, is reportedly heavily pregnant, according to sources close to the Black Widow star.
In fact, she skipped most of the in-person promotional activities for the recently released Marvel superhero movie in the past months, even though this was likely her final outing as Black Widow and she was also an executive producer on the film.
In her Zoom interviews, she was able to conceal her baby bump and has yet to confirm or deny the pregnancy rumours.
If they are true, this will be her first child with husband Colin Jost, 39, a star on Saturday Night Live whom she married last October.
She has a six-year-old daughter, Rose, with her ex-husband, Frenchman Romain Dauriac, who owns an advertising agency.
Xu Bin and Evelyn Wang
Local actor Xu Bin, 32, is having a good year, despite the ongoing pandemic.
Besides getting rave reviews for his role as a lawyer recovering from a car crash in the recent drama My Star Bride, the China-born star also welcomed his second child, a daughter named Elyse, in March.
The news came as a surprise as he and his wife, Evelyn Wang, did not make public her pregnancy, which was probably easier to conceal as she is not in show business. They also have a three-year-old son, Ethan.
In an Instagram post announcing his daughter’s birth, he wrote: “From going to hospital happily, to entering the delivery suite nervously and to both mother and daughter being well, I felt like I had just taken a roller-coaster ride.
“In the end, I could only say: Thanks, wife. And welcome to this world, baby.”
Chen Fala and Emmanuel Straschnov
In a surprise Valentine’s Day post this year, Chinese-American actress Chen Fala announced that she had given birth to a baby girl, nicknamed Little Minnie as she was born at the tail end of the Year of the Rat.
The 39-year-old former TVB star, who is now based in New York and pursuing a career in Hollywood, married French entrepreneur Emmanuel Straschnov in 2019.
This is their first child and they have not shown her face on social media since she was born.
She posted a photo on Instagram of their three hands as well as a shot of herself during her pregnancy, which she did not make public.
“The past 10 months have been a wondrous journey, filled with unknowns, amazement, love and lots of joy,” she wrote.
“Our hearts are full as new parents and we look forward to every day with this little lady,” she wrote, adding a hashtag, #mylittlevalentine.