Surprise! Jenny Slate Secretly Marries Ben Shattuck

Actress Jenny Slate and her beau Ben Shattuck have tied the knot!

In a feature for Marie Claire, Slate revealed that they got married in their living room on New Year’s Eve.

They decided to make it a low-key affair after being forced to push their wedding date due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She shared, “We were planning on a [wedding] that ended up being almost 200 people, and then now, it's just our parents and siblings. We each invited six friends… I actually like it. I like it better."

“I didn't realize how the large thing was making me feel uncomfortable, a little bit,” Slate admitted. “Just a little.”

Ben popped the question to Jenny in September 2019, just months before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the world. At the time, she announced on Instagram, “He took me to France and made a picnic and made me feel happy and free and then he asked me to marry him and i screamed YES. I love you @benshattuck_art, you are the kindest and brightest and I am so grateful and here we go and keep going."

They were originally set to marry in the summer of 2020. Though they had to hold off on their wedding, they experienced another life-changing moment… the birth of their daughter Ida Lupine, who was born a year ago.

Jenny opened up about giving birth during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last year. She said, “It was like a totally extreme experience during which I completely lost any filter that I might already have left. And after I had the baby it was like 'Ah, the baby is out! She's here!' And I just was like, 'Did my vagina rip enough? Did anyone know? Is it like one vagina still or is it not?'"

Of motherhood, Jenny noted in Marie Claire’s first-ever The Creators Issue in partnership with Adobe, "I only realized this after I had the baby, but I thought being a mother would be like a replica of my own mother's experience with motherhood. At least, how I perceived it: in which she really, really, really loves us so much, and also, she often seemed really stressed out, and at loose ends, and at her wits' end, and exhausted, and splattered in clay. Instead, I feel like it's been the opposite of that for me. Not at all that it's not difficult and challenging to have a newborn baby. There are so many profound challenges, but I've never been happier in my life. I feel like I can finally be what I want to be.”

For more on Jenny, visit MarieClaire.com!