What You Don't Know About...me

Social media darling (and outspoken activist) Chrissy Teigen talks for the first time about her experience with postpartum depression:“This is my open letter.”

Chrissy Teigen, 31, is many things: a Sports Illustrated cover girl, a New York Times best-selling cookbook author, a host of the Emmy-nominated TV series Lip Sync Battle, and the soon-to-be designer of a fashion line with Revolve. But she’s best known for what her husband, John Legend, calls her “smart mouth.” She opines on everything from politics to stretch marks, 140 characters a time on Twitter. And her commentary is often so “you took the words out of my mouth!” that all you have to do is hit RT and add the word “PREACH.”

What women love about Teigen is that she is, as she admits, “an open book.” She will show off a perfect seared duck breast— and tell you she accidentally sliced off her fingertip on a mandoline. Ask her about the wildest place she’s had sex? She’ll answer. (An airplane.) She approaches any topic with that same raw, real candor.

But there’s one thing she hasn’t shared yet: After giving birth to her daughter, Luna, last April, Teigen developed postpartum depression, a condition affecting one in eight women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this exclusive essay for Glamour, she talks about her experience, why she kept it private, and how she’s doing now. And she is as raw and real as ever. Over to you, Chrissy.

When Glamour first told me I was going to be on the cover, I was freaking thrilled. Seriously. As a longtime reader, I couldn’t believe it. I’d always assumed that wearing swimsuits (or half a swimsuit) or having the occasional nip slip (or bit slip) wouldn’t make me the go-to choice for a women’s magazine I not only love but respect.