Not long after the release of the trailer for Kinda Pregnant—the new Amy Schumer Netflix movie that began streaming today—the YouTube page was flooded with comments about Meghan Markle. To be clear, the Duchess of Sussex has absolutely no involvement in this new comedy, which stars Schumer as a woman who fakes a pregnancy for attention. But because the internet will never leave this poor woman alone, some people are still clinging to an old, false conspiracy theory that Markle was never pregnant.
Directed by Tyler Spindel, with a screenplay written by Julia Paiva and Schumer, Kinda Pregnant stars Schumer as a woman who’s always wanted a family. When her best friend (Jillian Bell) announces that she’s pregnant, she spirals. A misunderstanding involving a fake belly leads to a fake pregnancy, and a snowballing web of lies.
Also starring Brianne Howey, Will Forte, Damon Wayans Jr., and Urzila Carlson, Kinda Pregnant is a wacky comedy meant to entertain. It’s not based on real life. So why do people think Kinda Pregnant is based on a true story?
Is Kinda Pregnant based on a true story?
The Amy Schumer movie Kinda Pregnant is not based on a true story. It’s a fictional, made-up story that is not based on any real person or situation.
The initial script and idea came from writer Julia Paiva, with Schumer coming on as a co-writer later. In an interview for the Kinda Pregnant press notes, Paiva, who is also a first grade teacher, said that the idea for the movie “came from my life and being in my mid 30s and feeling the pressure of being married and having kids.”
The reason that some people seem to believe, incorrectly, that Kinda Pregnant is based on a true story is thanks to a prevalent and false conspiracy theory regarding Meghan Markle, aka Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who is married to England’s Prince Harry. Markle gave birth to her first son with Prince Harry, Archie, in May 2019. In the lead up, wild and baseless conspiracy theories tore through social media, claiming that Markle used a surrogate, or that she and Prince Harry adopted, or that their child didn’t even exist at all.
A 2022 reported feature from Vice on this phenomenon revealed that one of the woman who started the rumor, a 60-something Welsh woman named Sadie Quinlan, edited images of Markle and shared them on a private social media network in an attempt to “prove” that Markle was never pregnant. Markle’s half-sister, Samantha Markle, was also a member of this private group, which was hosted on the unmoderated social media network, MeWe—a notorious hotbed for far-right and fringe conspiracy theories like QAnon.
Even after a Netflix documentary series, Harry & Meghan, was released featuring images of Markle’s ultrasound, the conspiracy theory persisted, with hundreds of YouTube videos and Reddit threads that claim to have “prove” that Markle was not pregnant.
While speaking to Vice for the 2022 feature, researcher and Bot Sentinel founder Christopher Bouzy said of the conspiracy theorists, “You could have a video of Meghan giving birth, and they will probably claim that it is CGI. We’re not dealing with rational people here.”
People like Quinlan, with large internet followings, encourage their subscribes to spam any media related to Markle with comments bolstering the conspiracy theory. That’s why you see so many comments on the Kinda Pregnant trailer falsely claiming that the movie is “a true story based on Meghan Markle.”
One video, posted shortly after the release of the Kinda Pregnant trailer, titled “THERE WAS NO BABY IN HER WOMB! Netflix trolls Meghan’s fake pregnancies with new series,” has over 14,000 views on YouTube. (The video incorrectly identifies Kinda Pregnant as a series, despite the fact that it’s a movie.)
Needless to say, that is not true. It seems highly unlikely that Paiva or Schumer were thinking of Markle when they made this movie. Welcome to the world of wacky internet conspiracy theories.
