Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Baena George Pimentel/Getty Images
Aubrey Plaza’s husband, director Jeff Baena, has died at the age of 47, according to medical examiner records viewed by Us Weekly.
Circumstances surrounding Baena’s death are currently unknown, according to Deadline. Records indicate that the case status is listed as “open,” with an exam scheduled. Us has reached out for further comment.
Baena is survived by 40-year-old Plaza, whom he married in 2020. They initially started dating in 2011 and often kept their relationship private.
“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?”
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 […]
Baena was best known for his work on Life After Beth, Joshy, The Little Hours, Horse Girl, Spin Me Round and I Heart Huckabees. (Life After Beth, The Little Hours and Spin Me Round were professional collaborations with Plaza.)
After a decade together, Plaza and Baena tied the knot.
“We got a little bored one night,” Plaza recalled on the Ellen DeGeneres Show in December 2021. “We got married and I’ll tell you how: Onehourmarriage.com. That’s real, look it up.”
Jeff Baena Mat Hayward/Getty Images
She 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. I can’t remember a lot of it, it was fuzzy. But, I’m pretty sure it was legal.”
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’s marriage even informed her role on HBO’s The White Lotus season 2, in which her character, Harper, was also in a longtime relationship.
“This character is me,” she quipped to GQ in 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.”
Baena got to see Plaza transform into Harper firsthand.
“I went to go visit Aubrey. She was shooting The White Lotus a couple of weeks ago,” he told Digital Trends that same year. “I’d been to Sicily before, but I still went to Cefalù, which I’d never been to before, and that blew my mind. The Amalfi Coast is incredible. We went to Puglia, which I’d never been to before. It’s insanely beautiful. The people are so kind to me. To me, they have it worked out, like, that’s the place. I’m just drawn to it.”
Plaza has not publicly addressed Baena’s death.
