Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Baena Michael Tran/FilmMagic
Aubrey Plaza has broken her silence after her husband, Jeff Baena, died at the age of 47.
“This is an unimaginable tragedy,” Plaza’s rep said in a statement on behalf of the actress and her family to Us Weekly on Monday, January 6. “We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support. Please respect our privacy during this time.”
News broke on Saturday, January 4, that Baena had died one day earlier. According to medical examiner records viewed by Us Weekly, Baena died by suicide.
Baena and Plaza, 40, had been together for 14 years, meeting in 2011 before tying the knot in 2020.
Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Baena were together for over a decade ahead of his death in 2025. The pair started dating in 2011 but never confirmed exactly when they met or when their love story began. Plaza and the Horse Girl director have collaborated on films including Life After Beth and Joshy in 2016 and […]
“A lot of things happened during COVID for me. Yes, we got married. Big deal,” Plaza recalled during a December 2021 appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. “We got a little bored one night. We got married and I’ll tell you how: Onehourmarriage.com. That’s real, look it up.”
Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Baena George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival
She added, “We were in the lockdown. Things got a little crazy, especially in my house. My husband got really into tie-dying and when I say tie-dying, I mean 50 shirts a day.”
At the time, Plaza wanted to “do something” special for their tenth anniversary and came up with an impromptu ceremony in their backyard.
“I created a very quick love altar in our yard. Facts of our love, little stones, smoke, fire. Things of that nature,” the Parks and Recreation alum recalled at the time. “Then the man from Alhambra showed up in a Hawaiian shirt with a briefcase [to perform the ceremony]. … I can’t remember a lot of it, it was fuzzy. But I’m pretty sure it’s legal.”
The next year, Plaza was able to use her wedding as inspiration for her White Lotus character. (She played Harper on season 2, a character who was also married.)
“This character is me,” Plaza quipped to GQ in November 2022. “It’s probably the first project that I’ve ever done that I’m like, whoa, this is really close to home. … I don’t have kids. I’ve been with my husband for 12 years. I relate to being in a relationship that has peaks and valleys, and going through a rough patch and comparing yourself to another couple that seems perfect.”
Season 2 of The White Lotus is all about infidelity, but offscreen, many of the cast members are happily married. Aubrey Plaza, who plays Harper Spiller, revealed in May 2021 that she secretly tied the knot with Jeff Baena after a decade of dating before his death in 2025. The Parks and Recreation alum referred […]
Plaza and Baena had often kept their relationship private save for their professional collaborations in Life After Death, The Little Hours and Spin Me Round.
“She’s awesome. I’d be working with her if she wasn’t my wife, but luckily she is my wife,” Baena told Reel Talker in August 2022. “The opportunity to do something creative [together] where we’re both fulfilled — how rare is that?”
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