Cruickshank stays on trend with twins
“I didn’t know anything about twins,” deadpans Jessi Cruickshank to anyone, and everyone, who’s listening these days. “Sure, I had every Mary-Kate and Ashley movie on VHS, and I did meet the Property Brothers in person once, but that was it.”
Hold the praying-hand emoji. Screw on the OMG.
More than elated now about her plunge into pending parenthood, the beloved Canadian TV personality is unfeigned about her initial reaction when she found out that she was carrying twins: she wept. In the car. After her visit with the doctor. It wasn’t “the plan.” On the agenda was a husband, a career and a baby. Mark it down: one kiddo.
“We don’t have this in our family,” the 35-year-old recalls about the twins ta-da, surmising it as “one of God’s jokes.”
Cruickshank burst out crying in the car but then, through the tears, her thoughts turned to Beyoncé. “As crazy as it sounds, Beyoncé has been a source of strength for me during this.”
With her bespoke sense of humour — drier than the Gobi Desert, the Swiss navy or an AA meeting — she’s arrived at a reconciliation with this twist of pregnancy, but not without also finding much comedy to mine. There is, for instance, the local “twins club” that she and her husband, Evan, a TV editor/producer, have gotten acquainted with: a multi-baby support group that she calls a sort of “Soho House for the overly fertile.”
There is, moreover, her ongoing prayer to the universe that she winds up with her own Noah’s Ark of ginger-haired tots, the naturally fiery-maned funny-woman telling me, “I feel I have a responsibility to the red-haired community.”
There is also, inevitably, the game of names. “We’ve always had one name . . .” she trails off, over the phone from her place in L.A. But now the challenge is markedly different: the official ID’ing of twins has to be synergistic, “but not overly rhythmic,” she muses (mindful about the importance of keeping the personas of her kids distinct).
Turns out she has a friend who’s a name consultant (really) and she’s been running ideas by her. “I gave her one and she told me it had too many vowels.”
For a good quorum of millennials in Canada, Cruickshank’s knockedup status may very well register a generational sigh. More than anyone else in this country, during a certain peak in the aughts, she — together with her equally droll co-host Dan Levy — was one of the definitive voices of their peer group, a hilarious genie-in-a-bottle sensa- tion when hosting The Hills After Show on MTV (in both Canada and the U.S) and later, their own nightly talk show, simply titled The After Show.
Having stayed fairly ubiquitous since — a presence on eTalk, host of Canada’s Smartest Person on CBC and one of the panellists on the daytime yak-fest The Goods, also on the national broadcaster — Cruickshank, who shuttles between California and Toronto these days, is demonstrative of an aging demo: older millennials who remember debating “Dawson or Pacy?” who now have nannies on their speeddial.
It makes for a neat congruence, too, that there’s an all-out baby boom this year amongst the stars of the milestone show that Dan and Jessi used to madly deconstruct: not only did Lauren Conrad of The Hills just have a baby, but both Whitney Port and Heidi Montag are preggers, too.
Possibly because many feel like they “know” Cruickshank from having watched her for years — or possibly just TMI is in vogue — she tells me she’s been quite surprised by how people just come out and ask if her twins “are via IVF?” A good number have even asked: “Are they natural?”
For the record, they are, but she’s extra-cognizant about the higher rate of multiple births of late in both Canada and the U.S. (the rate of twin births in the States has increased by over 75 per cent since 1980, accord- ing to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and that the research does indicate that higher rate is due, at least in part, to more women waiting to have children and using fertility treatments.
“I do wonder exactly how many twins are going to be at the school dance that I’m going to be chaperoning for my kids in 16 years,” Cruickshank muses.
Being a celebrity buff, she’s also aware of the twins booms in that galaxy. It was just the other week, after all, when Beyoncé posted a photo of her two new bundles of joy — a pic that’s already one of the most “liked” in Instagram history. Earlier in the month came the arrival of Amal and George Clooney’s twins. Over the last decade, there have been double-troubles courtesy of Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, Angelina Jolie, Ricky Martin, Sarah Jessica Parker and Julia Roberts.
“I went on a deep internet dive into Gisele’s twin,” Cruickshank says, switching gears for a second, as we descended into a history tour of famous twins. To be a twin can be tricky enough . . . but to be the twin of a supermodel like Gisele Bundchen? How does that work?
“Scarlett Johansson has a secret twin brother,” I tell her. She knew. “So does Alanis!” Nothing gets past Cruickshank. At a certain point, our conversation veers to that vintage book series Sweet Valley High (twins! twins! twins!) and then, inevitably, back to the sisters Olsen, who the TV host declares “the most successful twins in human history.” How, she goes on, “they managed to go from wearing overalls” to having a fashion brand today that is so cool even Lauren Hutton has modelled for it, is one of the great stories of our time.
Cruickshank, who describes herself as “gigantic,” does further confirm that her “pizza pockets” cravings-phase is now behind her. When are the babies coming, by the way?
“Pre-TIFF,” she quips, clearly still on the media-celebrity calendar.