The Only Way Is Essex star Gemma Collins has said she terminated a pregnancy after being told her unborn child was intersex.
Intersex is an umbrella term for people born with anatomy or chromosomes that do not fit with the traditional conceptions of male or female.
Speaking on the Everything I Know About Me podcast, the 43-year-old star said she was advised to end a pregnancy in her early twenties after being told the foetus was a “hermaphrodite”.
The term hermaphrodite is considered outdated and medically inaccurate, and intersex or differences in sex development (DSD) is now used instead.
Collins said she had did not know what the word “hermaphrodite” meant and it was a “real shock”.
“They advised me, you need to have a termination,” she said.
She went ahead with the abortion, she said.
“It was very sad about the baby but it was just not meant to be,” she added.
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Collins has previously spoken candidly about her fertility struggles, including having multiple miscarriages.
She has polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects the ovaries and can make it difficult to get pregnant.
On her podcast, she talked about having a miscarriage at home when she did not know she was pregnant.
“I actually gave birth to a child, sadly, and basically the child was four months old, basically I had a miscarriage but obviously the baby was formed and it died in front of me.’
“I had to go to the hospital and my mum was there. I can remember my mum being really upset, I was in shock, I was upset.
“That was really a shocking moment for me. But this is what I’m saying, I can talk about it now. Things sometimes are not meant to be.”