Paloma Faith, 42, reveals she suffered a secret miscarriage on the set of Pennyworth but refused to tell staff for fear of losing her job – before suffering an ectopic pregnancy and fertility problems

Paloma Faith has shed light on her heartbreaking fertility struggles.

The singer and actress, 42, appeared on the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, where she revealed she suffered a miscarriage on the set of the 2019 drama Pennyworth, in which she plays sociopath Bet Sykes.

She explained that while filming a fight scene she realized she was having a miscarriage, but insisted on continuing filming for fear of losing her job, saying, “I would just go home with no job and no viable pregnancy.'

The star, who shares two children with her ex Leyman Lahcine, also described suffering a traumatic ectopic pregnancy after undergoing IVF treatment, where the ectopic pregnancy damaged a fallopian tube and affected her fertility.

She continued: 'I then had an ectopic pregnancy with the first and then my fertility started to decline because one tube was damaged. The second time worked, so I was lucky because I actually had two viable pregnancies quite quickly.”

On keeping her miscarriage a secret at work, Paloma said: '[The miscarriage] started at work and it was a fight scene at Pennyworth. I thought to myself, it's gone, so I might as well continue what I was doing. I had to go to the toilet 9 times…

“I told them I ate something bad last night because I knew they would escort me home if I told them. I did not want to. I would just go home with no work and no viable pregnancy.”

Paloma has opened up about her fertility struggles after experiencing a slew of trials and tribulations during her baby journey.

The star welcomed a daughter with husband Leyman in December 2016 and a second baby girl in February 2021 – before splitting last year after nine years together.

In their quest for a child, before welcoming their girls, Paloma and Leyman underwent IVF, which she said, “It's so harrowing to do and it's always in the background. Nobody knows it's happening. We had some problems…

'I knew quite quickly that there were problems and then discovered that the beginning of our fertility treatment was because it was on his side that there were those problems, but thanks to modern science and patriarchy it is still on the woman.'

She then shed light on her ectopic pregnancy, in which a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, usually in one of the fallopian tubes.

She said: 'I then had an ectopic pregnancy with my first, and then my fertility started to decline because one tube was damaged…

'The second time worked, so I was lucky because I actually had two viable pregnancies quite quickly.'

Paloma shed light on her difficult births, as she said, “The birth was really difficult. It was actually unbearable…

'It started with PROMS (Premature Rupture of Membranes) – You're kind of in labor and that was only six months pregnant, I think, and they were like, You're going to have to be induced, you're going to have a premature baby…

'I was really defiant that I was going to get that, so I just lay in bed and drank four liters of water a day for a month to replace the lost water.'

Speaking about the traumatic time and her severe sleep deprivation, she said: 'After a 21-hour labor and no sleep for a week. I slept 7 hours in 7 days…

'I had an emergency caesarean section which also later gave me fertility problems, and then a bit of postpartum psychosis due to lack of sleep, so I was hallucinating a bit. Probably been depressed for a few years without realizing it…

'Later I wanted a second child and then I had three failed transfers. The fourth worked and I was just so stubborn about it.”

Elsewhere she spoke about her split. Paloma married the French artist, 36, in 2017 before confirming they split in 2022 after nine years together.

On dealing with a breakup with children, she said: 'It feels so dramatically different because you can't do the first part where you are, I need space, I can't see you anymore. You are forced to do this…

“We pretended to get along at first, pretended we weren't both absolutely devastated, and it gets confusing. It's like a never ending breakup…

I feel sorry for anyone who dates me because he is so important. He is so wrapped up in my children that he is almost more important than anyone else. I place him above most people because he is the father of my children.”

Paloma spoke about growing up with a single mother and the fate of her mother.

She said: 'I did that mainly because my mother came from extreme poverty on a scale that doesn't even exist anymore…

“If there was no money, there was no food, and stealing food from other farm stuff because they came from a rural area…

'Knowing that she came out of that and told me all the time: we got an education because we wanted to get out of there. We studied because we wanted an escape route.

'Because a home life with education was so important to me, I got all A's on my exams, then got a diploma and then a master's, all that. It was definitely motivated by honoring what she had done.”