The media was sent into a veritable frenzy after Molly-Mae Hague spoke to fans about her chosen form of contraception on her Instagram stories this week: ‘Proper girl talk…but what type of contraception suits you best? I’m struggling’ wrote one fan to Molly-Mae during a Q&A session on her social media.
‘When you find one, let me know,’ Molly-Mae replied. ‘The pills, I’ve been on a few and I just can’t find the right one for me – it’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life.’ Later, she added: ‘I use the Flo app to track my fertile point of the month, but I don’t recommend this if you want something much safer/more accurate.’
What this conversation should have highlighted is the troubling lack of suitable contraception currently available to women. Additionally, it’s worth noting that the Flo app Molly-Mae told her followers about has been subject to a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission for mining women’s data about their menstruation, fertility and pregnancies to share with Facebook and Google without their permission—seriously bad.
Yet, instead, the main takeaway from this conversation was: Is Molly-Mae trying for a baby? And tabloids quickly jumped to hypothesise: ‘Molly Mae Hague And Tommy Fury Don’t Use Contraception,’ one headline announced. ‘Molly Mae Sparks Baby Rumours’ another broadcasted.
This speculation is nothing new. When Molly-Mae was papped pushing her boyfriend Tommy Fury’s nephew along the street in a buggy last Spring headlines dubbed them a ‘doting couple’ who looked ‘VERY parental’, with other articles stating the reality star had ‘hinted’ she was ‘feeling broody’.
Molly Mae’s success stems from her authenticity and openness with her fans. She regularly conducts Q&A sessions on her Instagram and doesn’t shy away from answering intimate questions online. But just because she offers up a certain section of her personal life for public consumption doesn’t waive her right for privacy or give anybody the right to speculate over why, when, or how she’ll decide to start a family.
What’s increasingly frustrating about the guessing game is that Molly-Mae has already put rumours to rest herself. After telling her Instagram followers she had come off the contraceptive pill because it gave her headaches and made her ‘emotional’ last May, she clarified: ‘This is not because we are trying for a baby… I’m not on any form of contraception because I can’t find any contraception that I like.’
The Love Island alum also explained in January that she had no interest in having children for at least another two years because she wanted to focus on her career: ‘I'll be completely honest, sometimes I get really excited by the idea and I think I want to have kids NOW,’ Molly-Mae told her YouTube subscribers.
‘But it takes my manager Fran to make me realise these next couple of years of my life are the most important years for me, to capitalise on and work as hard as I can work to set myself up for life. There's plenty of time to have babies and start a family.’
And let’s say, for the sake of debate, that Molly-Mae changes her mind and decides to try for a baby in the near future. The process of becoming a mother can be long and heart-breaking with numerous complications and disappointments. Once pregnant, it’s similarly scary and the majority of women opt not to even tell their loved ones until they’ve reached the end of their first trimester.
How additionally stressful must it be to have press clambering to discuss your potential pregnancy while struggling to conceive or suffering complications? Like everyone else, Molly-Mae deserves privacy while she navigates her journey to parenthood. Her womb shouldn’t be up for discussion just because she found fame on a reality show.
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