On The Real Housewives of New York City, it seems like no topic is off limits. During the course of 15 seasons, members of the cast have—often candidly, sometimes reluctantly—opened up about everything from their sex lives to their finances.
And yet, there was one thing Erin Lichy never thought she’d share. “It’s a really hard topic,” she tells Glamour Global Editorial Director Samantha Barry. The two sat down in May 2024 for a wide-ranging interview about the 37-year-old’s new mezcal, how her life has changed since joining the reality show in 2022, and the topic she’s finally ready to talk about decades later: her abortion story.
As Lichy tells it, she had just turned 18 and was within her second week of college when she found out she was pregnant by her boyfriend at the time. “I literally remember the feeling washing over me in my dorm bathroom, and I just lost it,” she says. “I was sitting on the floor for maybe an hour and a half hysterically crying, just like, ‘What am I gonna do? Oh my God.’ It was so terrifying to me.”
Lichy didn’t have close friends at her new school that she could depend on yet and was too scared to tell her parents. She searched online for what to do and discovered Planned Parenthood was an option. And so, “My boyfriend at the time came up, and I had an abortion.”
Even saying those words out loud now, she says, is hard. “It makes me emotional.”
Lichy says she still remembers how caring her doctor at Planned Parenthood was, and her then-boyfriend was very supportive. Still,, Lichy found the experience so “traumatizing” that she never spoke to him again. “I couldn’t,” she says. “Something broke inside me, and I just didn’t even want to have any connection to it.”
She also didn’t tell a soul about what happened until a year later, when she told her mother. “The most beautiful part about it was that she said, ‘It happened to me too,’” Lichy says. “It felt like women supporting women. Like, even though she’s my mom she wanted me to know…Everybody has a story. I would bet that most girls have a similar story, even if it’s [about using] Plan B.”
During Lichy’s conversation with Barry, she also reveals that she never told her father—who passed away this October—about her abortion. “My dad is a very open-minded person, but it’s still scary,” she says. “It’s still, like, I wish I didn’t have to talk about it with him, which is interesting because we talk about everything. It hits different.”
In a follow-up conversation with Glamour, Lichy says she eventually shared her story with him before his death. “I did wind up discussing my story with my dad, and his response was even more beautiful and heartwarming than I could have ever imagined,” she says. “I went into this conversation with him hoping for acceptance and support, which I was lucky enough to receive, but beyond that, he gave me friendship. It shows how incredibly supportive he was and how he was such an open-minded man. I love him so much. I will never be able to put into words how much.”
“My father was my rock, my backbone, my support, my security,” she continues. “It’s very difficult for me to put into words how big of a loss this is for me and my siblings. He was the unifier, our confidant, therapist, our joy, and our laughter. Growing up, I just knew he was behind me at all times with fierce loyalty and love. There will be a hole in my heart forever.”
Now, as a mom to three—and pregnant with her fourth child—Lichy says thinking about her abortion is even more sensitive. “I remember when I had my first child, looking at him and thinking, ‘How could I have done that?’” she says. On the other hand, she acknowledges that she wouldn’t be where she is right now, or the kind of mother she is to her children, if she hadn’t gotten an abortion at 18.
And as a public figure, Lichy now feels a greater responsibility for what she says and does—which is why she’s chosen to share her story at this time. “I felt like if I didn’t have this conversation and open up about it, what kind of woman would I be? I think the more stories that are out there, especially from influential people, the more relatable this becomes and the more people can understand it.”
After the fall of Roe v. Wade, Lichy knew she needed to speak out. “Forget about choice for women like me—but what about someone who’s suffering or has a high-risk pregnancy?” she says. “It goes so far beyond just my experience, and it’s scary. It’s scary to be a woman. If such a fundamental right could be stripped from us, what else can?”
To Erin Lichy, this isn’t a political issue. It’s a healthcare issue. “Look, I’ll say this: I can understand the other side in the sense that life is a precious thing, right? It shouldn’t be a flippant decision. It’s a precious thing. It’s a tough, tough decision…I think it’s really difficult for women, and maybe not everybody talks about that.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
The post Erin Lichy Shares the Story of Her Abortion appeared first on Glamour.
