It’s over. Lena Waithe and wife Alana Mayo have called it quits, Us Weekly can confirm.
The couple, who secretly tied the knot in late 2019, announced their separation in a statement to Us on Wednesday, January 22.
“After careful thought and consideration, we have decided to part ways,” the couple’s reps said. “We have nothing but support for one another and ask that you respect our privacy during this time.”
A few weeks prior to their separation news, the Chi writer, 35, opened up exclusively to Us about her “interesting” life as a married woman. Waithe explained at the time that she and Mayo, 34, were still trying to find the right balance in their union.
“Now it’s like, I think we’re just doing the best we can, trying to figure it out,” Waithe told Us on January 3 at Variety Presents the Creative Impact Awards and 10 Directors to Watch Brunch in Palm Springs. “Nobody has all the answers, you know what I’m saying?”
She added: “It’s just like, OK, I think this is what is needed now, you know what I mean? I think as you get older and you mature, you try and figure things out. But yeah, it’s like one of those life things that you do, and you hope you get it right.”
The pair’s breakup comes two months after Waithe and Mayo announced they secretly wed in San Francisco.
“We snuck and did it,” the Master of None alum, 35, told The Ellen DeGeneres Show guest host John Legend in November 2019, while holding up her left hand to show off her wedding ring. “You know, we didn’t make any announcements.”
The pair wed “right in front of” a statue of late gay activist Harvey Milk, Waithe said at the time.
“It was her idea, like all good things are,” the actress said of her then-wife. “She was just driving and she saw the courthouse and she said, ‘We should get married there.’ And I said, ‘Cool, I’m down.’”
The Emmy winner proposed to the Outlier Society executive on Thanksgiving Day in 2017 while on vacation in Tokyo.
