Aubrey Plaza’s marriage to the late Jeff Baena allegedly rubbed some of her most devout, intense fans the wrong way.
“Oh my god. Jeff got death threats in his DMs,” Plaza, 40, told Cosmopolitan in a 2022 profile, referring to several of her bisexual fans mourning her singlehood on social media. “I think so. People project so much stuff onto marriage, but it wasn’t some big statement I’m trying to make where I want everybody to react to it.”
Plaza and Baena had been together from 2011 until his sudden and untimely death in January 2025. To celebrate their 10th dating anniversary, the pair tied the knot in 2020 during lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic.
“A lot of things happened during COVID for me. Yes, we got married. Big deal,” Plaza recalled 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.”
She added at the time, “We were in the lockdown. Things got a little crazy, especially in my house. My husband got really into tie-dying and when I say tie-dying, I mean 50 shirts a day.”
Plaza and Baena wed at home in what she described as a witchy affair.
“I created a very quick love altar in our yard. Facts of our love, little stones, smoke, fire. Things of that nature,” she told host Ellen DeGeneres. “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.”
While speaking with Cosmo, Plaza further detailed the spooky ceremony and her penchant for bewitching content.
“I’ve always loved Halloween. There was always a witchy vibe in Delaware where I grew up and my mom was always witchy. I don’t know how to explain it. It runs in our blood,” she quipped. “I have Basque blood — like a lot of witches who were burned at the stake in the European witch trials. My mom always made me believe in magic. Not, like, rabbit-out-of-a-hat magic — she was just always operating on another wavelength.”
She added, “Also, in middle school, I’d go with friends into the woods and do weird spells and stuff. Somewhere along the way, I got really into herbs and mushrooms and oils and more pagan-y things. It became less ‘I’m doing a spell to harness the power of the wind’ and more ‘I’m using these herbs medicinally’ or something.”
Us Weekly confirmed on Saturday, January 4, that Baena, an indie filmmaker, died by suicide at age 47. Plaza has yet to publicly address his passing.
In addition to Plaza, Baena is survived by his parents, his stepparents and his siblings.
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