Aubrey Plaza Reflects on Grief After Husband’s Death: ‘Ocean of Awfulness’

Aubrey Plaza is opening up about her grief in the aftermath of her husband Jeff Baena’s suicide in January.

Plaza got candid about how she’s doing on the “Good Hang” podcast as she sat down with her former “Parks & Recreation” co-star Amy Poehler.

Amy said, "Just to get it out the way, people want to see you and want to see how you are. They love you… You've had this terrible, terrible, tragic year. You lost your husband, you've been dealing with that, and you've been looking for all different ways in which to feel and find support.”

Poehler went on to ask, "On behalf of all the people who feel like they know you, and the people who do know you, how are you feeling today?"

Aubrey replied, "Right in this very, very present moment, I feel happy to be with you."

She continued, "Overall, I'm here and I'm functioning. I feel really grateful to be moving through the world. I think I'm okay, but it's like a daily struggle, obviously.”

Plaza compared her grief to the movie “The Gorge” starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy.

The actress said, "This is a really dumb analogy, and it was kind of a joke at a certain point, but I actually mean it. Did you see that movie ‘The Gorge’?"

She explained, "It's like [an] alien movie or something with Miles Teller. In the movie, there's, like, a cliff on one side and there's a cliff on the other side, then there's a gorge in between and it's filled with all these, like, monster people that are trying to get them.”

Aubrey reflected, "I swear when I watched it, I was like, ‘That feels like what my grief is like…’ or what grief could be like." 

She put it this way, "At all times, there's, like, a giant ocean of awfulness, that's, like, right there, and I can see it. Sometimes, I just want to dive into it, and just, like, be in it. Then, sometimes I just look at it, and sometimes I try to get away from it. But it's always there.”

In January, news broke that Baena had died at his residence in L.A. According to Deadline, the County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner stated at the time that the 47-year-old filmmaker's death was suicide by hanging.

Following his passing, Plaza told People magazine in a statement, “This is an unimaginable tragedy. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support. Please respect our privacy during this time.”

Plaza and Baena had been a couple since 2011, but she kept their relationship out of the public eye. In 2021, she confirmed on Instagram that they were married. After he died, TMZ reported the couple had separated in September 2024.