Hilary Swank worked until 17 weeks pregnant — and no one on set knew

Hilary Swank is opening up about her pregnancy. The 52-year-old actress recently shared that she was expecting her third child and is entering her third trimester. She decided to wait to share the news with the world until she was comfortable with it. 

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In an appearance on the Question Everything podcast, Swank revealed that the people who surround her helped. She also shared she continued to work through the first months of her pregnancy, keeping the news to herself. 

“I live in a very small town. It’s a town I grew up in, and everyone there has been so just respectful of my privacy, and it hasn’t leaked,” Swank said. “Clearly, I don’t stay at home all the time. I was working up until about 17 weeks pregnant, so no one really knew on set either.”

“I’m a pretty private person, and there was no reason to really, I don’t know, say anything,” she continued. “And then we passed this wonderful diaper bill, and I wanted to show up here, and so I was like, ‘Well, hello everybody and meet the baby in my belly.’”

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Swank's sweet baby announcement

Swank shared the happy news on her social media, sharing a video on her Instagram that showed Swank and her family, made up of her husband Philip Scheider and her three-year-old twins Aya and Ohm, dancing in the dark, with glow sticks taped to their bodies. 

Swank appeared last, revealing her baby bump. “A lot of people have been asking what project I’m doing next, this one releases in December," she captioned the post, adding a baby emoji. 

© Hilary Swank / Instagram

Since she shared the news, Swank has been out promoting her work. In an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, she shared some poignant criticism she's received since sharing her pregnancy. “There’s a lot of backlash women get for having children older but not men, which is interesting,” she said.

She shared a story of a woman who approached her and told her that her kids would be too young when she died. “And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I would rather be born and have that person that was my favorite person and experience that than not at all,’ ” said Swank. “Do you know what I’m saying? So that’s how I took what she said.”

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