On Nov. 22 former 7th Heaven actress Beverley Mitchell shared heartbreaking news on her blog, Growing Up Hollywood. The 37-year-old mom-of-two had miscarried twins months earlier and she was revealing the news to her fans on Thanksgiving. Beverley and her husband Michael Cameron were stunned when – mere weeks after they found out she was pregnant – she lost her babies. Noting that their dream of their “growing family came crashing down, Beverley added, “This was a shock. Honestly, my first instinct was to say I was fine, and to be honest; I was trying to be. I thought I had to be, for my family, for myself.”
Months later Beverley is calling for women to speak up and not “suffer in silence.” She added, “Let’s remove the stigma, miscarriages happen, they are nothing to be ashamed of.” Here are five things to know about the actress who the world came to know and love when she was a child.
1. She played Lucy Camden on 7th Heaven. For 11 seasons – from 1996 to 2007 – Beverley co-starred in the family TV series about a reverend, his wife and their houseful of children. “I think we were a very special kind of show,” Beverley told Refinery29 in August 2016. “We were a show that wasn’t just entertainment, but that became literally a part of people’s families.”
2. Beverley has been acting since she was 4-years-old. Her first gig was in an AT&T commercial. “I was actually discovered in food court at the mall,” she wrote on her blog. “I was having a full blown meltdown because I was hungry and someone actually thought I was cute and said I had something special and she signed me.”
3. Beverley is still good friends with her former on-screen sister Jessica Biel. They both attended each other’s weddings and Jessica (who called Beverley her “soul sister” on Instagram in January 2018) was her co-star’s bridesmaid in real life.
4. She stars in the TV series Hollywood Darlings with fellow former child actors Jodie Sweetin and Christine Lakin. The three women were both on hit shows in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Jodie was in Full House and Christine starred in Step by Step.
5. She met her husband Michael in 2000 while she was in college. They started dating, got engaged five years later and wed in October 2008, according to InStyle. They now have two children – daughter Kenzie, 5, and son Hutton, 3. “We still have dreams of growing our family,” she wrote on her blog on Nov. 22, “but now more than ever, I look at Kenzie, Hutton, and Michael and just feel full.”