Gemma Collins reveals she suffered third miscarriage in July

Watch: Gemma Collins opens up about third miscarriage in open letter to Meghan Markle

Gemma Collins has revealed that she had a miscarriage during lockdown this summer and that it left her “dreams of motherhood shattered into pieces”.

The reality star opened up her loss after Meghan Markle announced that she had lost her second child with Prince Harry.

Writing a letter to Markle in The Sun, Collins said she suffered the miscarriage – which was her third – in July.

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Saying that Markle’s story had left her in tears, Collins wrote: “I’ve not talked about this before, but it was my third, each one a devastating loss on my longed-for journey to motherhood.

“I’ve been trying to have a baby for nearly a decade now, only to have my hopes dashed time and again by first one miscarriage, then another.”

The star said she had not realised she was expecting a baby with then boyfriend James Argent when she started to miscarry, but that when she saw a doctor she was sent to hospital where it was confirmed.

“In a single instant, I learned that I’d been carrying a baby and lost it, meaning that once again I found my longstanding dreams of motherhood shattered into pieces,” she said.

Collins said her first miscarriage was eight years ago, sharing that she “gave birth on my landing to a four-and-a-half-month-old baby, my whole body shaking with shock as it happened”.

She said although she grieved in private she felt she had to put on a “big Gemma Collins brave face” in public.

The star, 39, said four months after her last miscarriage she still thinks about it every day, and that it is hard being single as she has since split from Argent.

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She praised Markle for speaking out, adding: “I know my heart, like yours, will never repair from the loss of my babies, the sweet souls who never made it to Earth.

“But I also know that this is not the end of my dreams of motherhood, or your dream of giving Archie a baby brother or sister.”

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