Halle Bailey says she made one major diet change when she was pregnant

Prior to her pregnancy cravings for meat, she had been vegan for about 13 years, she said.

“I was just like, “Well, I’m gonna give my body what it wants right now because I’m doing a really hard job of growing a human, and I also wanted to make sure Halo was getting the proper nutrients and things he needed,” Bailey said. She welcomed her son, Halo, with her partner, DDG, in 2023.

The singer shared that even though she started consuming meat, she still eats mostly vegan food.

“If I have an inkling or craving for chicken or something, I’ll eat it. But I don’t eat a lot of meat. But it’s like if I want it, I’m going to have it, and then that’s it,” Bailey said.

She added that she eventually learned that it wasn’t that unusual for vegans to change their diet while pregnant.

“I was looking it up and I see so many women like me who were vegan for years and years,” Bailey said. “Once they got pregnant, it was, like, out the window.”

Dr. Allison Suttle, a gynecologist and chief medical officer at Sanford Health, previously told Business Insider that meat cravings can be a sign that the body is deficient in certain nutrients, such as iron and vitamin B12.

While eating a vegan diet during pregnancy doesn’t necessarily pose risks to the mother or the baby, Suttle said it is harder for the body to absorb plant-based iron compared to iron found in animal products. This means that vegetarians and vegans should also consume foods rich in vitamin C, which can help with absorption.

In 2017, Bailey — alongside her sister, Chloe — told Complex that their mother influenced them to become vegans.

“Being vegan started from our mother. One day she was like, ‘I’m gonna try to be vegetarian for a week. You can join me if you’d like.’ We started the week with her and just never went back,” Bailey said.

A representative for Bailey did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular business hours.