Growing apart. After nearly eight years together, Natasha Lyonne and Fred Armisen have officially split.
“I had been [in Los Angeles] living with Fred and during COVID. I honestly think we broke up because I wanted a swimming pool,” the Russian Doll star, 43, told The Hollywood Reporter in a profile published on Friday, April 15. “We love each other just about as much as two people can love each other and we’re still talking all the time, but Freddy doesn’t like a swimming pool.”
She continued: “It might seem like a mundane reason for a breakup, but during that pandemic, you’ve got to get your laps — I’m like Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer. So, I got myself a house with a pool out in Los Angeles. So that’s the real scandal. I guess I finally am an actual bicoastal.”
Us Weekly previously confirmed in August 2014 that the Orange Is The New Black alum had been dating the Saturday Night Live alum, 55, after they attended several pre-Emmy Awards events together. An eyewitness told Us that the pair acted “very flirty” and talked “very closely” throughout the night.
The now-exes initially connected thanks to Maya Rudolph, who played matchmaker.
“I was going through a rocky road, as we know,” she recalled of her “Grey Gardens phase” during a September 2019 interview with Glamour, noting that Rudolph, 49, and Armisen stopped by her apartment to find her chain-smoking wearing only a silk robe and sunglasses. “I pulled out a copy of [Legs McNeil’s] Please Kill Me, autographed it, and was like, ‘Welcome, kid. Fred—what a name. Happy birthday. Enjoy the book.’ He still has it.”
The Portlandia alum — who has yet to publicly address the split — and Lyonne had been dividing their time between her apartment in New York City and his residence in Los Angeles. She even praised his caretaking abilities to Glamour at the time. “They’re always going to pick me up from school on time,” she added, referring to Armisen and her pal Chloë Sevigny.
The Mississippi native, for his part, was previously married to Sally Timms between 1998 and 2004. He later moved on with The Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss, whom he wed in 2009 before their 2011 split.
“Everything is a process to make your life better — everything,” Armisen told Vulture in June 2016 amid his romance with Lyonne. “I’m trying to be less selfish. I want to give more than I’m used to giving.”
