Dramatic celebrity births, from full silence to bathroom floors

This week, Mike Tindall, husband of Zara Tindall, opened up on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here about how she gave birth on the bathroom floor as she was not going to make it to hospital. The couple had their child Lucas Tindall at her mother, Princess Anne’s estate, Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire. The birth in March 2021 was thought to be the first royal baby born at home for nearly 60 years. Here are some more dramatic birth stories from celebrities over the years. Naturally, Tindall is not the only mother to have given birth unexpectedly in a bathroom at home, as baby makes a fast entry into the world. Sterling K Brown, star of This Is Us , told chat show Live With Kelly and Ryan in 2016 that his son Andrew was born in a bathroom. His wife, Ryan Michelle Bathe, was "crawling out of the bathroom", he said, although Brown wasn't convinced she was going to give birth at the time. "She dials 911 and is trying to get the paramedics, and I'm on the phone with the midwife," he said, adding that when his wife started pushing, his son's "body just wriggled out". A similar situation happened to US singer Teyana Taylor, who gave birth to daughter Iman a few weeks early in 2015. She recounted the experience in an Instagram post the next day, saying her then-fiance, professional basketball player Iman Shumpert, "played doctor". "She came out as a wonderful surprise to everyone! Not knowing I was in labour until I felt her head ... it took two 10 count pushes with my fiance playing doctor and she entered this world into his bare hands! "Eyes full of tears and barely able to speak to the emergency operator @imanshumpert tied a pair of red headphones around the umbilical cord and the ambulance made a grand entrance five minutes later. She opened her eyes right away, gazed into mine and never cried! He handed her to me wrapped in our bath towel and wiped her face for me to see what Love really is." Kelly Preston was not quiet about her silent birth. The actress, who died in 2020, two years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, had three children with John Travolta and used the Scientology practice for each labour. "Silent birth is basically just no words, as much as possible," she told Today . "If you need to moan, if you cry out, you know, all of that of course, that's normal. Just bringing them in as peaceful and gentle a way as possible." Preston credited her children's "very calm, very peaceful, happy" demeanours to it. It's also been speculated, but not confirmed, that Katie Holmes gave birth to hers and Tom Cruise's child in this way, too, as they both practiced Scientology. Jessica Alba had an unusual birth experience — her daughter Haven came out with the amniotic sac still intact, something that rarely happens. "The doctor had never seen anything like it before," she said in an interview. "He grabbed the nurse and said: "Look at this!' I was in the middle of pushing and he told me to hold on a minute and not to push!" She said "it was a trip" and that the sac burst on its own after her baby came out. It even inspired her name, as Alba and her husband Cash Warren said she had entered the world in a "safe haven". Seth Meyers told his Late Night audience about his son Axel Strahl's unusual entry into the world, as his wife, Alexi Ashe, gave birth in the lobby of their New York apartment building. Meyers said his wife's labour progressed so quickly, they knew she wouldn't even make it to the car. The choice was between the lift and the lobby. “I’m trying to calm her down,” Meyers said. “I know because I’ve been through exactly one birth. I’m like, ‘This happens all the time.’ “I looked at my wife, and the only way I could describe was she looked like someone who was hiding a baby in a pair of sweatpants,” Meyers said, with a laugh. Scroll through the gallery below to see celebrities who have gotten married in 2022 so far

Dramatic celebrity births, from full silence to bathroom floors

Zara Tindall, Jessica Alba and Kelly Preston are a few mothers with unusual birth stories

Other bathroom floors

Giving birth in silence

Amniotic sac intact

In the lobby of an apartment building