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Aubrey Plaza is speaking out after the death of her husband, director Jeff Baena.
In a statement to TODAY.com on Jan. 6, Plaza and the Baena and Stern family call his death โan unimaginable tragedy.โ
โThis is an unimaginable tragedy. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support,โ the statement reads. โPlease respect our privacy during this time.โ
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner confirmed Baena died by suicide at his home on Jan. 3, according to their records. He was 47.
The director and screenwriter is known for co-writing 2004’s โI Heart Huckabees,โ creating the 2021 Showtime anthology series โCinema Toastโ and directing the 2020 Netflix film โHorse Girl.โย
Baena and Plaza worked together over the years on projects like โLife After Beth,โ โThe Little Hours,โ and โSpin Me Round.โ The couple maintained a relatively private relationship and said “I do” in 2021 after dating for more than a decade.
During a December 2021 episode ofย โThe Drew Barrymore Show,โ Plaza shared that they had been together for 11 years and that they got โmarried on a whim.โ
โJeff got really into tie-dying during the quarantine, so I decided that Jeff and I were going to wear tie-dye pajamas that he had made for us,โ she said. โI made a love altar in the backyard of all of our love objects. It was very witchcore, but it happened.โโ
That year, she praised her โdarling husbandโ for creating another great project to work together on.
โSo proud of my darling husband @jeffbaena for dreaming up another film that takes us to italia to cause some more trouble,โ she captioned her May 2021 Instagram post.
The statement from Plaza and their family comes after director Brady Corbet acknowledged her and Baena while accepting the best director Golden Globe during the Jan. 5 ceremony.
At the end of his speech, Corbet honored a handful of people he knew who recently died. โAnd finally, tonight my heart is with Aubrey Plaza and Jeffโs family. Goodnight,โ he concluded his speech.
Plaza was originally scheduled to present during the ceremony.