Views: 338
Aubrey Plaza has opened up about her grief for husband Jeff Baena, who died in January 2025, in an interview with Amy Poehler.
Writer and director Jeff Baena, 47, was found dead in his Los Angeles home in January, with medical reports determining he had died by suicide.
Jeff Baena was a writer and director much loved in the comedy community, and, unsurprisingly, Aubrey Plaza opened up on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, given that the friends worked together for years on Parks and Recreation, the series that made Plaza a star. In the podcast, Amy Poehler asked how she was doing during a “terrible, terrible, tragic year.”
Plaza responded, saying, “Right in this very, very present moment, I feel happy to be with you,” adding, “overall, I’m here and I’m functioning.”
Plaza’s comments speak to the complex grief and specific horror that follows a loved one’s suicide, which many struggle to describe. She said she’d found a “really dumb” analogy for experience in an alien movie, The Gorge, starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. She described a grief that can feel all-consuming and terrifying.
“In the movie, there’s a cliff on one side and a cliff on the other side, then there’s like a gorge in between, and it’s filled with all these monster people that are trying to get them,” she said.
“I swear, when I watched it, I was like, that feels like what my grief is like. At all times, there’s a giant awfulness that’s right there, and I can see it.”
“Sometimes I just want to dive into it and just be in it. And sometimes I just look at it. And then sometimes I just try and get away from it – but it’s always there. And the monster people are trying to get me like Miles Teller.”
Plaza and Baena began dating in 2011 and married in 2021. They worked together with Plaza starring in Baena’s directorial debut, the 2014 zombie comedy Life After Beth and two other films, The Little Hours and Spin Me Round. Baena also co-wrote I Heart Huckabees. In an interview on the Drew Barrymore Show, Plaza described how Jeff Baena’s obsession with tie-dying during COVID influenced their wedding. “We got married on a whim. [We] literally decided around 5pm, [and] got married at 8:30. Jeff got really into tie-dyeing during quarantine, so I decided we were going to wear tie dye pyjamas that he made for us, and I made an altar in the backyard of all our love objects.”
At the time of Baena’s death, they had been separated for four months.
Help Is Available:
You are not alone. One in six Australians will experience suicidal thoughts or behaviours in their lifetime and suicide is the leading cause of death amongst Australians aged 15-44. On average, nine Australians die by suicide each day and more than 54,0000 Australians are estimated to attempt suicide each year.
If you need assistance and support, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, text or chat with support workers online. If you are in immediate danger, call 000.
The post Aubrey Plaza Has Described Her ‘Monster’ Grief For Husband Jeff Baena In First Interview appeared first on ELLE.
