Celebrity
Lupita Nyong’o Opens Up About Her Recent Breakup For The First Time
“There is a lesson for me to learn in this.”
Lupita Nyong’o is opening up about her recent breakup.
During a new interview with Porter, the actor discussed the “pain and heartbreak” that led to her sharing the details of her breakup online. (Nyong’o announced the split on Instagram in October 2023.)
“I looked at the environment of my social media and thought I don’t want to be a part of this illusion that everything is always coming up roses,” she explained, without naming her ex, Selema Masekela, specifically. “Surely there is a lesson for me to learn in this, and I just want to be real about it.”
In the new interview, Nyong’o clarified that she was comfortable being open about her and Masekela’s relationship on social media because she “felt sure about it,” but now plans on “going back to those days” of keeping her dating life private.
As for the future, the Oscar winner is open to finding love again. “Our purpose in life is to love,” she told the outlet. “And so you have to get back in it.”
Lupita & Selema’s Relationship
Nyong’o and Masekela first crossed paths in 2016, when they were seated together during a flight from Los Angeles.
“Hypothetically speaking of course…Let’s say you're seated behind Lupita Nyong'o on an airplane, what would be your opening line?” Masekela wrote in a since-deleted tweet at the time.
The two announced their romance on Instagram in Dec. 2022, as People reported, with the actor writing that they “just click!”
When Nyong’o announced her split from Masekela on Instagram last fall, she wrote, “I am tempted to run into the shadows and hide, only to return to the light when I have regained my strength enough for me to say, ‘Whatever, my life is better this way. ... I am choosing to face the pain, cultivating the courage to meet my life exactly as it is, and trusting that this too shall pass. #Breakup.”
Per People, Nyong’o was photographed holding hands with actor Joshua Jackson in Los Angeles in Dec. 2023 — just two months after Jackson and his ex-wife, Jodie Turner-Smith, filed for divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for their separation.
