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Celebrities that tried to hide their VERY pregnant bumps on screen

Sometimes, there’s just no hiding a baby bump after the 20-week mark. Try as they might, no perfectly positioned flower pot is going to cover up their pregnancy. Not everyone gains a tidy 25 pounds while pregnant either, so TV show and movie writers have to use their creative means to either hide their stars’ […]

By Nancy Brown
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Sometimes, there’s just no hiding a baby bump after the 20-week mark. Try as they might, no perfectly positioned flower pot is going to cover up their pregnancy.

Not everyone gains a tidy 25 pounds while pregnant either, so TV show and movie writers have to use their creative means to either hide their stars’ growing midsections or write in a weight gain storyline somehow.

Claire Danes

How on earth did Claire Danes manage to pull off such a tricky character being seven-and-a-half months pregnant? As if that wasn’t hard enough, she also had quite a few lovemaking scenes. The Romeo & Juliet actress told the Hollywood Reporter that it sucked, and can you blame her? At least she had the headscarves to sneakily throw up in between takes.

Amy Poehler

Luckily Amy Poehler got pregnant nearing the end of season two of Parks and Recreation, so the producers immediately decided to film season three’s first six episodes back-to-back before she got too big! The cast and crew were said to be absolutely exhausted from working straight into the next season, and the props used to hide Amy’s growing bump became increasingly stranger.

Julia Roberts

The brilliant Julia Roberts got pregnant while filming Ocean’s Twelve but instead of concealing her bump, the writers worked it in so her character Tess pretended to be the actual Julia Roberts. Got that? Her character put on a fake tummy and everything! Little did we know, it was real.

Kerry Washington

The writers of the hit show Scandal were in quite a bit of shock when it was announced Kerry Washington was pregnant. So of course, they ended up having to try and find ridiculous ways of trying to hide her baby bump. Check out the tactical placement of those files! And do you guys remember the lamp?

Courteney Cox

Aw, remember the heartbreaking episode where Monica had discovered she was infertile? Unfortunately for the writers of Friends, when they wrote that story-line, she was in fact pregnant in real life. They couldn’t exactly turn around give her the child her and Chandler had always dreamed of. Instead it was baggy clothes, coats and LOTS of head shots.

Ellen Pompeo

Poor old Meredith Grey had to donate her liver due to her becoming pregnant with daughter Stella Luna during Grey’s Anatomy. Season six was NOT the same because of it. Oh well, we suppose there is only so much that scrubs can cover up!

Hayden Panettiere

Hayden surprised Nashville’s writers when she announced her pregnancy with Wladimir Klitschko. Luckily, they were very quick to work a baby into the story-line of the star’s character, Juliette Barnes. Fans found out as soon as season three started. Did you SEE how big her bump got? There is no concealing that.

Jaime King

The ways in which crew had to hide Jaime’s bump were hilarious. Flowers, baskets, tables, dishes, cups, you name it, Hart of Dixie used it. We bet it was brilliant excuse to pile on a few extra pounds!

Halle Berry

Poor Halle. Of all the times to be pregnant, of course it would be playing Storm in X-Men, and having to wear a skin-tight wardrobe! The crew had to think of a way to get round this so instead of changing her clothing, the director cut several of her character’s scenes. In an interview with Us Weekly, Halle said she wasn’t in the film as much as she was originally, and the whole reason being because of her belly. Bit cheeky isn’t it?!

Betsy Brandt

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Things got a little crazy on the set of Breaking Bad when Betsy Brandt (Marie) became pregnant. Her character was not, but Anna Gunn’s (Skylar) was. So the directors had to distract from Brandt and use shots of her belly to show authenticity for Gunn. Talk about a difficult mission.

Marcia Cross

Desperate Housewives season three did not include a pregnancy for Marcia Cross’s character, Bree Van de Kamp, so costume artists hid her belly with flowy clothes. Ironically, in the fourth season Kamp did wind up getting pregnant so Cross wore padded stomachs. Why they couldn’t just do it for season three we will never understand.

Zooey Deschanel

Zooey Deschanel‘s pregnancy won’t be seen on the fifth season of New Girl. Rather than make Jess pregnant, the show’s writers have had her stuck in bed (due to a fall down some stairs!) and sitting in a jury box. The show filmed four episodes of this season immediately following the end of season four in order to capture Zooey before her belly began to show. While Zooey’s on maternity leave, Megan Fox will join the show to “shake things up!”

Jennifer Garner

Unlike Cross, when Jennifer Garner became pregnant during the filming of Alias, the show wrote her pregnancy into the series, following a four-month hiatus of course.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Carrie Bradshaw is not one to set her career aside to raise a family, so when Parker became pregnant while filming for Sex and the City the costume designers did everything in their power to hide her bump. However, they could only do so much and season five ended up being only eight episodes long.

Kelly Rutherford

Lily Van der Woodsen was already a mother, so when Rutherford announced she was expecting while filming season five of Gossip Girl the writers decided to hide her growing bump with baggy clothes and coats. At least the show was set in New York City so it wasn’t too odd seeing designer outerwear in every scene. Not that we were complaining, who doesn’t love a gorgeous peacoat?

Jessica Chapman

Jessica Capshaw’s pregnancy didn’t fall into Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. Arizona Robbins’s plotline, so the writers shipped her off to Africa for a few episodes earlier this year.

Emily Deschanel

Another show which went with it, Deschanel’s character in Bones, Temperance Brennan, wound up with a baby girl named Christine. The child brought together Booth and Temperance. At first fans were skeptical, but calmed down after seeing the romance blossom between the new parents.

Gillian Anderson

With a show filled with aliens and mystery, it wasn’t too hard for the writers of the X Files to handle Anderson’s announcement. Nope, they simply had her get abducted for most of season two. Fans missed their character, but never expected the motive behind writing her out until her pregnancy was confirmed later.

Jane Krakowski

Poor Krakowski, when she became pregnant while filming 30 Rock there was no way her character could have a baby. According to Krakowski, people said her character would make a terrible mother—and they weren’t wrong. So instead it was loose tops and baggy clothes for her, including wearing this dog costume.

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Nancy Brown
Associate Editor