The model and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen said late Wednesday that she and her husband, the musician John Legend, had lost their third child, a son, days after she posted on social media about suffering pregnancy complications.
“Driving home from the hospital with no baby,” Ms. Teigen wrote on Twitter. “How can this be real.”
Ms. Teigen also posted a black-and-white photograph to Twitter and Instagram that showed her sitting on a hospital bed with her hands clasped in a prayer-like position, seemingly in tears.
Ms. Teigen had been hospitalized a few days earlier, and it was not clear how far along she was in the pregnancy. Last month, she accidentally let it slip that she was expecting a baby boy.
In an emotional post accompanying the picture, Ms. Teigen wrote on Wednesday that she and Mr. Legend, 41, had not decided on their other two children’s names until just before they left the hospital. The couple have one daughter, Luna, 4, and a son, Miles, 2.
“But we, for some reason, had started to call this little guy in my belly Jack,” she told her combined 44 million followers on the platforms. “So he will always be Jack to us.”
In many ways, Ms. Teigen and Mr. Legend, who live in Los Angeles and own property in New York City, are the quintessential American celebrity power couple for the social media age.
She began carving out a public profile a decade ago, notably as a swimsuit model for Sports Illustrated. Her profile grew beyond the fashion world, and she used her love of cooking to publish cookbooks.
Ms. Teigen amassed millions of followers who praised her often-candid and bold statements on the platform — and her willingness not to back down from a fight.
Last year, Ms. Teigen and Mr. Legend publicly sparred with President Trump, who called her “filthy mouthed” in a Twitter post. Ms. Teigen fired back with expletives — including one that Mr. Trump famously used in a recording that surfaced shortly before the 2016 presidential election — and the spat went viral.
She has also used social media to advocate for progressive causes.
In 2015, for example, she spoke out in support of protesters in Ferguson, Mo., and led a celebrity-driven campaign for reproductive rights fatal shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.
She has also been the target of vitriol on the platform, and as reaction poured in after the couple’s loss, with many people like the comedian Sarah Silverman expressing sympathy, a hash tag “Oh Chrissy” was co-opted by Ms. Teigen’s critics.
Earlier this week, Ms. Teigen appeared to be in good spirits even after being hospitalized. In one video, she joked with her husband, who had apparently thought that her hospital room came with a minibar. Another video showed him making a sandwich.
But on Tuesday, Ms. Teigen wrote on Twitter that she had just experienced a “really scary morning.”
“Huge clot, almost save-worthy,” she wrote. “The scramble to hear the heartbeat seemed like hours. I never thought I’d relief sigh so much in my liiiiife.”
Ms. Teigen wrote on Wednesday that despite many blood transfusions, her baby had not been able to get the fluids he needed.
“We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before,” she wrote.
“On this darkest of days, we will grieve, we will cry out eyes out,” she added. “But we will hug and love each other harder and get through it.”
Later on Wednesday, Mr. Legend wrote on Twitter, “We love you, Jack,” followed by five black hearts.