Filmmaker Jeff Baena’s cause of death has been revealed after news of his death at 47 years old broke yesterday.
Husband to actress Aubrey Plaza, the LA County Medical Examiner’s office has confirmed Baena died by suicide.
‘Death was determined for an approximately 47-year old male, no transport,’ the Los Angeles Fire Department told DailyMail.com.
‘We responded to the 2100 block of Fern Dale Place for a death investigation. Officers responded for a male decedent,’ the Los Angeles Police Department told the publication.
Baena was pronounced dead at the scene.
The director was famous for indie films such as Life After Beth and The Little Hours.
He was also known for projects including Joshy (2016), Horse Girl (2020), Spin Me Round (2022), and for co-writing I Heart Huckabees (2004).
According to TMZ, Los Angeles police and fire got a call from an assistant on Friday around 10:30am.
Arriving on the scene, they discovered Baena dead in an LA area home believed to belong to the couple.
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The office later confirmed to the AP news agency that Baena was pronounced dead at 10:39am.
A coroner lead the death investigation.
Plaza—known for shows like Parks and Recreation and The White Lotus—married Baena in 2021 after the pair had been together for a decade.
Baena frequently collaborated with actress Alison Brie as well as his wife, whom he worked with on Life After Beth and other projects.
His latest film, Spin Me Round, was a comedy starring Plaza, Brie, Debby Ryan, and Molly Shannon.
Baena was born and raised in Miami before attending film school at New York University. He later moved to LA to pursue directing, though he got his start as a writer.
When asked about his directorial debut, writing and directing the zombie film Life After Beth, Baena told Seensome in 2014: ‘It’s all I ever want to do; it felt really comfortable and fun.
‘I’ve been a writer for 12 years now, and it was always a means to an end. I never wanted to be a writer; I wanted to be a director, so this was always my intention, and it felt right.’
Baena often credited director David O. Russell with helping kickstart his career after a minor car accident while working as Russell’s assistant led to the pair falling into transformative conversation.
He got a small piece of debris in his eye during the accident, and as Russell stepped in to help care for him, they got to talking about filmmaking.
This led to a collaboration that took Baena from an assistant to a screenwriter, as he eventually co-wrote I Heart Huckabees with Russell.
Baena and Plaza, 40, were a very private couple by Hollywood standards, with Plaza only announcing their marriage in an Instagram post in 2021.
The actress told The Ellen DeGeneres Show in December 2021 that she and Baena ‘got a little bored one night’ during the Covid pandemic and decided to wed after celebrating their 10th anniversary.
She added that after finding a wedding officiant online to perform the ceremony in their garden, she ‘created a very quick love altar in [their] yard’, and they tied the knot.
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Plaza has also previously publicly praised her supportive husband, telling People: ‘I think that when you’re with someone that is in your field, they understand what you’re dealing with on a deeper level.
‘So, obviously, you are able to support each other and really understand kind of the journey that we’re both on.’
Plaza had been announced as a presenter for Sunday’s Golden Globes ceremony, which is being hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser, earlier this week before Baena’s death.
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