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Actress Aubrey Plaza speaks out on the death of her husband. (archive picture)
Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP/dpa
Aubrey Plaza has spoken in detail for the first time about the suicide of her husband Jeff Baena. In a podcast, the US actress compared her grief to an "ocean of awfulness".
On January 3, 2025, US director and screenwriter Jeff Baena died at the age of 47. Baena also gained fame through his relationship with actress Aubrey Plaza. After almost seven months, she has now broken her silence about her husband's suicide.
On the podcast "Good Hang", the "The White Lotus" star explained in conversation with fellow actress Amy Poehler: "Right now, in this moment, I'm happy to be with you. Generally speaking, I'm here and I'm functioning." Plaza is "grateful that I can move in this world. I think I'm doing well, but of course it's a daily struggle."
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She compares what she has been through so far this year to the plot of the horror film "The Gorge", which was released in 2025. "In the movie, there's a cliff on one side and a cliff on the other side, and there's a gorge in between, and it's full of all these monster people trying to get you," Plaza explained. It's "a stupid comparison", but when the actress saw the movie, she immediately thought: "That's what my grief feels like. Or that's how it could feel. There's always a huge ocean of awfulness that I can see."
The 41-year-old revealed: "Sometimes I just want to jump in and be in it. Then again I try to distance myself. But the ocean of awfulness is always there."
Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Baena tied the knot in 2020. They had been in a relationship since 2011. They are said to have finally separated in September 2024, but the ex-couple had remained in close contact. Following the filmmaker's suicide, Plaza spoke of an "unimaginable tragedy" in a statement, asked for privacy - and has remained silent ever since.
