Telling his story. Giacomo Gianniotti spoke up about his and wife Nichole’s painful experience with two back-to-back miscarriages that both resulted in “medical abortion.”
“Even though my suffering can’t be compared to my wife’s suffering, I still suffered,” Gianniotti, 32, told the “Man Enough Podcast” hosts Justin Baldoni, Liz Plank and Jamey Heath during a Monday, June 13, episode. “I still lost two children. Never gonna get to meet them. Never gonna get to know their names. Never gonna get to push them on a swing. I lost that. That’s heavy.”
The Grey’s Anatomy alum married makeup artist Nichole Gustafson in April 2019 after dating since 2015. “For my wife and I, the trauma was threefold because the first trauma is finding out you’ve lost your child, which is hugely traumatic,” he explained.
“The second trauma is having to go to a medical facility where that child is having to be removed from her body and the finality of that is incredibly traumatizing. The third trauma is having to share this news with your community, loved ones [and] family and friends, and having to relive that trauma through sharing it.”
The Murdoch Mysteries actor told the “Man Enough Podcast” hosts that he wanted to speak publicly about the experience to show how men are also affected by miscarriages. Plank, 35, thanked Gianniotti for his courage. “I can’t tell you what it means for me to bring this up without me having to bring it up,” she said. The Backpackers alum also shared that he and his wife have gone to therapy to work through their “devastating, bring you-to-your-knees losses,” exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having it happen during a pandemic, where we’re [not] being as social as we normally would, was incredibly isolating,” Gianniotti said. “We felt incredibly alone. Experiences like this can either make or break a relationship and I’m very lucky to say we got closer over it.”
The Italy native’s wife voiced her support for the interview via Instagram. “Very proud of my husband to go on and talk about something so personal to us and so many others. … I hope that other men can feel seen by seeing a man like mine @giacomo_gianniotti be so incredibly vulnerable and feel like they too can speak on these issues. We need other men sharing their stories more. Giacomo, I love you so much ❤️,” she wrote in the caption alongside a video of her husband talking on the podcast.
After Gianniotti left Grey’s Anatomy in 2021, Us Weekly caught up with him to talk about his time on the medical drama. He revealed that of all his former costars, he texts Kevin McKidd (Owen Hunt) the most.
“He’s just been a great friend and mentor over the years as he’s a director as well,” Gianniotti said of McKidd, 48. “I leaned on him a lot in my directing career and as an actor and a guy and he’s just a great dude.”
