Celebs just don’t know how to tone it down. They will do anything just to get noticed and talked about in the media -- a little reality that clearly extends into babyland as well.
Baby announcements are usually all about the baby – just not in a celebrity’s world. Whereas most non-famous women announcing their pregnancies proudly put their bumps on full display, celebrating the coming lifestyle overhaul, pregnant celebrities do things quite differently.
If you’re a celebrity, then the general rule of thumb is to make the announcement all about you. Back in the day, celebrities used to keep their private lives as private as possible, but with the boom of social media, they now take advantage of their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat accounts not to “connect with fans” as they would have us believe, but instead to show off.
Even when they apparently participate in a good cause like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, they still manage to make it all about them (yep, one celebrity couple did indeed take advantage of this challenge to announce their baby news).
All of these celebs just tried way too hard with their announcements, which is a shame because many of these would have otherwise been quite awesome.
15 Just A Little Much
Whether this one should be classified as “trying too hard” or not is sure to be controversial. On the one hand, Shaun T’s announcement is full of feels. He recently shared a video to Instagram of himself sitting next to his husband Scott Blokker, revealing via flash cards a very special news: “Some things come easy, something take time. Struggles can be real, but with them you’ll find. Things happen for a reason. Sometimes you never know why. But never give up and remember it’s OK to cry. 5 years of challenges, 5 years of wait. Ups, downs in emotion, painful blows we’d take. But we learned to stay the course, hope and prayer wins. And we’re happy to finally announce…. we’re having twins!”
It’s obviously a very emotional news for them to share but having the surrogate stand stiffly in between them at the end of the video definitely pushes this one over to them just trying too hard.
14 Moms Have Better Fashion Sense Than That
Former Bachelorette Ali Fedotwosky gets points for originality with her pregnancy announcement picture, but that’s about it. Other than that, the message is pretty much lost with this one. Is she trying to say that now that she is going to be a mom, she is doomed to terrible fashion choices? That’s simply not true! As hard as it can be to find the time, most moms do continue to take care of themselves, putting great care into their clothing and make-up choices. To say that moms are doomed to wearing “mom jeans” simply isn’t fair. Even worse is her claim that she’s not a woman anymore.
The look on her husband’s face isn’t any better. Is he scared of future diaper explosions? No, the mom jeans are probably what he is scared of the most.
13 My 3-Year-Old Could Have Done Better
On the surface, Jena Malone’s pregnancy announcement looks all serene and original. After all, she is celebrating being pregnant for the first time – yay baby!
But who the heck took this picture? A toddler could have done a better job! That line down the middle is beyond annoying and totally ruins the picture, propelling it into the trying-too-hard category. It’s one thing to stand in the middle of nowhere in white dress and cute cowbow boots, embracing your belly for all to see and it’s a whole ‘nother thing to get way to artsy with the picture, effectively ruining it. As they say, less really is more.
That wasn’t the only pregnancy picture she took, although interestingly this second one has all but disappeared from the web, similar to how she herself pretty much did as well since giving birth.
12 Bump To Bump Overdone
After years of being the lead singer for Maroon 5 and then also serving as one of the highest paid coaches on The Voice, it’s clear that Adam Levine loves being at the center of attention. Even Blake Shelton couldn’t wait to stick it to him that there's a new People's Sexiest Man Alive.
Naturally, he just couldn’t let his wife Behati Prinsloo have the spotlight. When he posted this picture of the two of them standing bump to bump, he captioned it:
“Week 20 and I’m finally popping! #impregnanttoo”
Queue the eye roll on this one. If you look closely, she doesn’t even seem all that amused with his antics either. It’s a kind of look that says: “Happy now, honey?” The worst thing is he (probably) doesn’t even really care.
11 Can You Spot Cheryl?
There’s no denying Cheryl Cole’s star power and yet, her pregnancy announcement definitely came off as trying too hard while at the same time, not trying at all. Everyone was pretty much left scratching their heads when Cheryl confirmed her pregnancy by showing off her bump in a campaign shot for The Prince’s Trust and L’Oreal Paris’ collaboration, a three-year project designed to boost the confidence of young people.
Up until that point, there had been mass speculation about her relationship with One Direction’s 23-year-old Liam Payne and her picture in the campaign confirmed all the rumors that been swirling around. Celebs usually like to be the center of attention when confirming their pregnancies and for Cheryl to show off her bump amidst a campaign aimed at increasing body positivity is definitely out of place and over the top.
10 Way To Make It All About You
Back in the summer of 2014, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge took the media by storm. Suddenly, everyone was dousing themselves in ice cold water, uploading the video online and challenging others to do it. It was all for an amazing cause: to raise awareness of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a horrible disease that attacks nerve cells and results in muscle weakness.
Bridesmaids’ star Chris O’Dowd and his wife Dawn Porter decided to participate in the challenge as well, but for much different reasons. Rather than keeping the focus on raising awareness for ALS, they instead decided to take the opportunity to announce that they were expecting their first child together.
Even more cringe worthy is that after Dawn spilled a cup of water on her belly saying she would “like to nominate baby O’Porter”, Chris piped in with: “So brave!”
9 Sorry, Still Not A Kardashian
No matter how much she might try, Blac Chyna will never be Kardashian. Not only did the rejection of her request to trademark the name “Angela Renée Kardashian” make that fact painfully obvious, but so did her pregnancy announcement.
Back when Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian were still together and just a couple of weeks after announcing their engagement, she announced her pregnancy by sharing a pregnant emoji of herself on Instagram in May 2016. Technically, it was kind of a unique way of doing it given that no one had ever done it before.
However, when you consider how Kim Kardashian had already solidified herself as the emoji queen with the release of her Kimoji app just a couple of months prior in December 2015, then it greatly positions Blac Chyna’s efforts into the trying too hard category – trying too hard to be a Kardashian that is.
8 How Clever… Not
The message is totally lost here as all anyone can focus on is the ugly floor in the background and the outdated cabinets. Given that she actually went through the trouble of getting a special hat for the occasion of announcing her pregnancy, surely Felicia Day could have taken a better photo?
Apart from announcing that there’s a bundle of joy on the way, what other message is she trying to convey exactly? Do only rednecks get “as seen on TV” stuff? Not to mention how taking advantage of the redneck stereotype is also a terrible way of announcing a pregnancy. This one is definitely an overall fail, especially since it’s clear that she put in quite a bit of effort into it. Let’s just hope that she happened to find the hat somewhere and didn’t actually get it made especially for this picture.
7 All Tied Up
Yeah we get it, they’re already barely managing with two kids and now with a third one on the way, they’re definitely in trouble. Cute but still trying too hard.
Country singer-songwriter Craig and his wife Taylor recently shared this pregnancy announcement to show that they will be a family of five in January 2018.
They could have at least picked a better picture of the chaotic scene. The mom and the kid tying them up both have accurate facial expressions, but dad looks kind of bored and the little girl on his shoulders couldn’t have been caught in a worst moment.
In case you missed the writing on the window behind them, boys are soon going to be outnumbering the girls in their family (in case you also missed the subtle blue undertones in their clothing and accessories).
6 Bun In A Million
Oh look, another expectant couple who thought they would be clever with their bun in the oven picture. Just like the pregnancy announcements using Prego or the What To Expect book, taking a picture of a bun in the oven is beyond old at this point.
Simply throwing a bun in the oven and captioning it “A Bun’dle of love!” isn’t exactly all the extravagant. But what does throw this picture over the top is how hard Stacy Keibler was trying to stay relevant. After quitting the WWE and failing to win Dancing With The Stars in 2006, she then went on to have one of the most mortifyingly public splits of all time (from George Clooney).
Unfortunately for her, she just hasn’t been able to recover the level of stardom that she once enjoyed.
5 Makin’ A Big Impression
Christina Aguilera’s pregnancy shoots were definitely on par with her over the top style and vocals. And while her vocals are enough to make you want to throw your hands up in the air and scream “YEEESS!”, her pregnancy announcement was just a tad too much. There’s nothing wrong with a woman’s nipples, but we did have to blur it out.
It was back in 2014 that she posed for these pictures for V Magazine, in which she was also quoted saying: “As a woman, I'm proud to embrace my body through all stages of life, staying fearless and confident in surrendering to the unknowns the future has in store.”
As legendary as she is, it’s still trying way too hard to stay relevant. She is a beautiful woman, but there is still something to be said about the amount of photoshop that likely went into these pictures. So were the pictures about celebrating her pregnancy or were they just to show off her likely photoshopped body?
4 Watcha Cookin’ Up Exactly?
While announcing that his wife Marika Dominczyk was pregnant with their third child, Scandal’s Scott Foley definitely tried a little too hard. He posted a picture of his wife holding an oversized frying pan with the caption: “My pregnant wife thought I might want this for my birthday. I’m not the one with the bizarre cravings”.
His picture actually came right on the heels of his wife announcing the news on her own Twitter account first, which was equally as trying a little too hard. Just a day prior, she shared a picture of herself standing next to a donkey with the caption: “Sometimes you just gotta chill with your donkey. And your baby bump!”
As much as she talks about just chilling next to her donkey, it’s clear that the picture isn’t exactly a candid one and was instead taken professionally.
3 Can You Handle This?
Pregnancy announcements are usually sweet and super exciting, but Alanis Morisette’s way of announcing that she was expecting her second child with Mario “Souleye” Treadway was certainly a touch on the weird side. A touch? Okay, a lot on the weird side.
A video was posted on her website with the caption: “The story of my nuclear family in moving pictures, brings us up to this sweet moment,” Morissette wrote. “[The song was] written, recorded and produced in 6 hours on May 22, 2010 with Guy Sigsworth, on the sly, to surprise Souleye. Brendan Huza helped tell our story. May this song take on ever-deepening meaning as each year goes by.”
In a way, the deeply personal video is very sweet as it details the couple’s love for each other, ending with them looking at a sonogram together. At the same time though, it’s definitely excessive and perhaps a video that would have been best kept private.
At the time, she had also shared another picture of herself during her second pregnancy:
2 Those Doggies Are About To Take A Backseat
We all love our furbabies to the moon and back but come on, Carrie Underwood definitely overdid it with her announcement.
She posted this picture on Labor Day 2014 with the caption: "In honor of 'Labor' Day, Ace & Penny would like to make an announcement. Their parents couldn't be happier..."
The custom doggy shirts are kind of cute, but they’re distracting from the star herself, who fans would have definitely preferred to see more of instead. A cute baby bump picture would have been much preferred. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but judging from her belly, it also looks like she may have jumped the gun with her announcement a bit. It’s not uncommon to wait until at least 20 weeks to announce a pregnancy, but she was probably just too excited to keep the news to herself.
1 Crowning Herself
As much as Rolling Stone may have named her “The Queen of Confessional Pop” in 2000, the “Queen” title in the music industry is nonetheless one that has evaded Gwen Stefani throughout her entire career. Madonna, Britney, Christina Aguilera, and Lady Gaga have all been named the Queens of Pop and despite receiving numerous musical awards, she is usually just referred to as a “Pop Princess”.
It’s a different story at home though. During the announcement of her third pregnancy, she shared a picture of herself with a crown on her head and the caption: “I was ready to have over the crown. But I guess I am still queen of the house. #itsaboy #surroundedbyboys”.
Looks like if no one is going to give her a crown in the entertainment industry, she decided to crown herself! It’s a clever caption but still trying too hard as we can’t even see her bump in the picture.
Sources: Today.com, USMagazine.com, RollingStone.com, People.com, and PopSugar.com.