Aubrey Plaza pregnant with first child 15 months after husband's death
The White Lotus star Aubrey Plaza is pregnant with her first child following 'an emotional year'.
Plaza's pregnancy comes 15 months after the death of her husband Jeff Baena, who died by suicide in January 2025.
A source told PEOPLE that she is expecting a child with her partner Chris Abbott. "It was a beautiful surprise after an emotional year," the source said, adding that 'they feel very blessed'.
PEOPLE said Plaza's representative confirmed the good news with the outlet.
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Plaza, 41, and the Poor Things actor Abbott, 40, worked together on 2020 film Black Bear and on the Off-Broadway revival of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea in 2023.
Film and TV fans will know Abbott from Girls, Catch-22, Wolf Man, Possessor and The Testament of Ann Lee.
Back in 2023, Plaza told the New York Times of working with Abbott: "He cares but he also doesn’t care; it’s the best recipe for me for a scene partner. It’s fun and it’s also good and it’s also safe."
Abbott said of Plaza in the same interview: "We’re both unafraid to be ugly and weird and strange."
Jeff Ward, who directed Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, said: "From Black Bear, it was clear that it was going to be electric. There was no ‘getting to know you’ section.
"There’s just something about the way they match up."
Abbott and Plaza have managed to keep their relationship more or less private.
Speculation about the two began when a source told Deuxmoi they had spotted them together at The Chatham Berry Farm, about two and a half hours from New York, with Abbott's sister Christina last summer.
Plaza was said to have been 'rubbing his back, and they were sitting very close to each other at a picnic table'.
Then in November, pictures emerged of Plaza and Abbott attending a New York Knicks game together, sitting in the front row alongside Ben Stiller.
Their relationship blossomed amid a very difficult time for Plaza after her estranged husband, Baena, an American film director, died by suicide at the age of 47.
Plaza and Baena secretly got married in 2021 and worked on 2022 film Spin Me Round, written and directed by her husband.
"I think that when you're with someone that is in your field, they understand what you're dealing with on a deeper level," she told PEOPLE in 2019.
The pair separated in September 2024 due to reported marital difficulties.
Last year, Plaza opened up about grief during a podcast appearance with her former Parks and Recreation co-star Amy Poehler.
"Right in this very very present moment I feel happy to be with you," she said on A Good Hang with Amy Poehler.
"I feel...overall I'm here, and I'm functioning, and I feel, you know, I feel really grateful to be moving through the world. I think, like, I'm OK, but you know, it's like a daily struggle."
She went on to compare her grief with the horror movie The Gorge, which features a giant crevasse filled with monsters.
"That feels like what my grief is like, or what grief could be like," Plaza added.
"At all times there's like a giant ocean of, just, awfulness, that's like right there and I can see it, and sometimes I just want to like dive into it, and just like be in it, and then sometimes I just like look at it, and then sometimes I just like try to get away from it, but it's always there."
LADbible Group has contacted Aubrey Plaza's representatives for comment.
Anish Vij