By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-05 01:19:43 | Updated at 2025-01-06 22:29:27
1 day ago
Aubrey Plaza enjoyed a New York Knicks Game just two days before her husband Jeff Baena's tragic death by suicide.
The actress, 40, was seated in the front row at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden on New Year's Day to watch the home team play the Utah Jazz.
In a photo shared on the Knicks' Instagram, Plaza was pictured in a pair of jeans, a black corduroy jacket and an orange billed cap over her straight, brunette locks.
'Starting off the new year with our courtside friends,' the organization wrote next to a carousel of high profile fans, including Tracee Ellis Ross, Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann and their daughter, Maude, and Keenan Michael Key.
Baena, a writer and director, was found dead aged 47 at around 10:30am this Friday at the Los Angeles home he shared with his wife.
His cause of death has been confirmed as suicide by hanging, in an update from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office.
Aubrey Plaza enjoyed a New York Knicks Game on New Year's Day, just two days before her husband Jeff Baena's tragic death by suicide
An assistant discovered his body at the home he and Plaza bought in 2022 and officers responded at 10:25 am, the Los Angeles Fire Department told the DailyMail.com.
'Death was determined for an approximately 47-year old male, no transport,' they said in a statement.
'We responded to the 2100 block of Fern Dale Place for a death investigation. Officers responded for a male decedent,' the Los Angeles Police Department added to the DailyMail.com. The Life After Beth director was pronounced dead at the scene.
Plaza and Baena met in 2011, over a game of Balderdash, according to a GQ profile of the actress.
They lived together for about a decade before tying the knot in 2020 during the Covid lockdown.
The Parks and Recreation alum supported her then-boyfriend, starring in his directorial debut Life After Beth, a zombie comedy, that debuted in 2014 at the Sundance Film Festival.
The couple also worked together on 2017's The Little Hours, about a young man in the Middle Ages who pretends to be a deaf mute, so he can hide in a convent creating quite a bit of temptation for the nuns.
Although the pair were rarely seen in public together Baena spoke about his work process in a joint interview with Plaza for Silver Screen Riot in 2017.
'I don't really bounce ideas off anyone, honestly,' Baena said at the time.
'It's not by choice, I've sort of created this insulated space. When I first came up, I co-wrote with somebody, so I was so used to bouncing ideas off of so I have that inner dialogue happening as opposed to externalizing.'
'With Aubrey, it's more about her character and what she's going through and instead of the movie itself,' he explained, adding, 'But we don't really collaborate in terms of co-writing stuff as of now.'
Plaza's husband, writer and director Jeff Baena, 47, was found dead in a Los Angeles home on Friday, January 3. The cause of death has not been released (Pictured in Culver City, CA in June 2017)
The very private pair were rarely seen in public together. They met in 2011, and worked together on 2014's Life After Beth and 2017's The Little Hours (Pictured in Park City, UT in January 2014)
Plaza made her directorial debut in 2021 on Showtime's anthology series, Cinema Toast, which was created by Baena.
That same year The White Lotus star casually revealed that their marriage had taken place in a social media post ahead of the release of 2022's Spin Me Round. 'So proud of my darling husband @jeffbaena for dreaming up another film that takes us to Italia to cause some more trouble, she wrote.
Baena is survived by Plaza, his parents: Barbara Stern, stepfather Roger Stern, father Scott Baena and stepmother Michele Baena along with brother Brad Baena and step-siblings Bianca Gabay and Jed Fluxman.
A statement released to Deadline said 'the family is devastated and asks for privacy at this difficult time.'
