Jeff Baena and Aubrey Plaza. Mark Davis/Getty Images for Sundance NEXT
Aubrey Plaza received support at the 2025 Golden Globes after her husband Jeff Baena‘s shocking death.
The Brutalist director Brady Corbet mentioned Plaza, 40, and Baena at the end of his acceptance speech on Sunday, January 5, after winning the award for Best Director. “My heart is with Aubrey Plaza and Jeff’s family,” he said.
Plaza did not appear at the awards show before the speech, which came two days after Baena died by suicide at age 47. The actress was scheduled to be a presenter before Us Weekly confirmed Baena’s passing at his Los Angeles residence on Friday, January 3.
Baena was an indie filmmaker known for projects such as I Heart Huckabees, Life After Beth, The Little Hours, Horse Girl and Spin Me Round. He often collaborated with Plaza, whom he began dating in 2011 and married nearly a decade later.
Celebrities are speaking out and voicing their heartbreak and support for Aubrey Plaza following the untimely passing of her husband, Jeff Baena. “No words can touch this painful time,” actress Selma Blair wrote on Plaza’s most recent Instagram post on Saturday, January 4. “Only love and strength and support from everyone. I am so sorry.” […]
“My first movie was a big learning experience on all fronts, and so working with her was a benefit because we have a shorthand and a close relationship,” Baena said of Plaza in an August 2022 interview with Newsweek. “As I’ve made more and more stuff, I’ve come to appreciate everything that she brings.”
Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Baena. George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival
Baena praised his wife’s commitment to her work, adding, “She’s insanely talented and so smart and obviously really good at producing. And she’s writing. There are very few people who can wear as many hats as her, as elegantly as she does.”
The screenwriter noted that Plaza is “amazing” at “everything she does.”
“Generally people point her out in whatever project she’s in as being the best part,” he continued at the time. “She’s, like, insanely talented and I’m very lucky to have her in my life.”
While Plaza has remained largely tight-lipped about her marriage, she previously shared details about her and Baena’s nuptials.
“A lot of things happened during COVID for me. Yes, we got married. Big deal,” she shared 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.”
Plaza added: “I created a very quick love altar in our yard. Facts of our love, little stones, smoke, fire. Things of that nature. 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.”