Please Don’t Rub Ellie Kemper’s Pregnant Belly

Ellie Kemper isn't into strangers touching her baby bump. The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star told The Today Show's Willie Geist that it has been an odd and unexpected part of her pregnancy. Kemper said that reaching out to rub her pregnant stomach is something people are really into. "Now I'm showing and I don't know what goes through a person's mind — a stranger's mind no less — when they think, 'Oh yes, your stomach is something that now belongs to me and I can touch it,'" she told Willie Geist on Today Sunday. "It's actually crazy." Kemper, 36, first announced her pregnancy in April on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In the beginning of her pregnancy, she said on Today, friends would reach out to touch her before she started showing. "It was just odd. I'm not a very touchy-feely comfortable person so with someone touching me, I'm like ahh personal space violation," she said. "It was like touching my digestion. There was nothing quite there." Kemper may have been joking about people reaching into her personal bubble, but was serious about her discomfort with being touched by strangers. "In a way, I think it's a nice reminder of humanity," Kemper said, "But then I quickly go back to the idea that you wouldn't do this if I weren't pregnant."