Lupita Nyong’o Juan Naharro Gimenez/WireImage
Lupita Nyong’o and Joshua Jackson are no longer dating, the actress has confirmed — just months after his ex-wife, Jodie Turner-Smith, gave their relationship her blessing.
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK, Oscar-winning actress Nyong’o revealed that she is very much single and is just enjoying spending time with her rescue cat, Yoyo. “My love for my cat is singular,” she said. “If I’m ever so lucky to be in a romantic relationship again, it’ll be because of him.”
She added: “I was ready to shut that door and lock it and bolt it. He has ensured that my heart remains open.”
Nyong’o, 41, was first linked to Dawson’s Creek star Jackson, 46, in October 2023, shortly after his split from Turner-Smith, who he was married to for four years and shares a daughter, Juno, with.
Nyong’o, too, was fresh out of a relationship with sports commentator Selema Masekela — and that split was a messy and traumatic one. “It is necessary for me to share a personal truth and publicly dissociate myself from someone I can no longer trust,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “I find myself in a season of heartbreak because of a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception. But I am reminded that the magnitude of the pain I am feeling is equal to the measure of my capacity for love. And so, 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.”
It seemed as if Jackson played a big part in helping Nyong’o through her heartbreak. They looked blissfully happy when they vacationed in Mexico together in March 2024 and then, in June, Turner-Smith said she was pleased to see her ex doing well. “Good for them,” she told The Cut. “We need happiness in order to peacefully co-parent. I’m trying to get us to the Gwyneth and Chris Martin level. I truly hope they’re happy and that it benefits us as a family.”
But soon, the rumors of another break-up for both Nyong’o and Jackson began to surface. Following her run of heartbreaks, Nyong’o is happy to just spend some quality time with Yoyo, who she adopted from the Best Friends Animal Society last year, the same month she and Jackson were first linked.
Amusingly, the Black Panther star spent most of her life terrified of cats and it was only when she was cast in John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place: Day One, playing a character with a cat, that she got over her fear. “My family can’t get over it,” she says. “My sisters are so disturbed every time I send them a picture of Yoyo. They’re like, oh my God, our sister has been stolen’.”
The actress says that she intends to keep future relationships out of the spotlight. “It’s hard enough to go through heartbreak privately,” she says. “When the world has an image of you in relation to someone else, it prolongs the healing process because the memory is emblazoned in the public domain.”
Yes, there’s only one man all over her Instagram now, and that’s a cute ginger tom called Yoyo.