Aubrey Plaza is reportedly expecting her first child with actor Christopher Abbott, a little over a year after the death of her husband Jeff Baena.
Representatives for the White Lotus star confirmed she was pregnant to US media, with a source telling People magazine: “It was a beautiful surprise after an emotional year,” adding: “They feel very blessed.”
Plaza, 41, is reportedly due to give birth in the fall. The Independent has reached out to representatives for both Plaza and Abbott.
Plaza and Abbott first worked together in the independent psychological drama Black Bear, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 to critical acclaim. They then appeared in the 2023 off-Broadway revival of John Patrick Shanley’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, which ran till January 2024.
The news of Plaza’s pregnancy came over a year after the death of her husband, screenwriter and director Baena, who died by suicide in early 2025.
Baena and Plaza had started dating in 2011 and were married 10 years later.
The White Lotus star spoke at length about Baena’s death for the first time in August on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast. She reflected on the time since his passing, likening her grief to “a giant ocean of awfulness” depicted in the 2025 film The Gorge.
“This is a really dumb analogy – it was a joke at a certain point but I kind of mean it – have you seen the film The Gorge? It’s like an alien movie with Miles Teller,” she said. “In the movie, there’s a cliff on one side and a cliff on the other side and a gorge in between, which is filled with other people who are trying to get there. That’s what my grief is like.”
Abbott is currently appearing on Broadway in a revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman alongside Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf.
He is also known for his role as Charlie Dattolo in the HBO series Girls, where he plays Allison Williams’s on-off boyfriend, as well as for his appearance in Poor Things in 2023.
He is set to feature in the forthcoming Netflix adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, opposite Florence Pugh.
If you are based in the USA and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
