Aubrey Plaza seen enjoying Knicks game two days before husband Jeff Baena’s tragic suicide

Aubrey Plaza enjoyed a New York Knicks Game just two days before her husband Jeff Baena’s tragic death by suicide.

The 40-year-old actress sat front row at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan on New Year’s Day to watch the home team play the Utah Jazz.

In a photo shared to the Knicks’ Instagram, Plaza was pictured wearing jeans, a black corduroy jacket and an orange cap over her straight, brunette locks.

“We’re starting the new year with our friends on the field,” the organization wrote alongside a carousel of high-profile fans including Tracee Ellis Ross, Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann and their daughter Maude and Keenan Michael Key.

Baena, a writer and director, was found dead around 10:30 a.m. Friday at the age of 47 in the Los Angeles home he shared with his wife.

His cause of death has been confirmed as suicide by hanging, in an update from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.

An assistant discovered his body in the home he and Plaza bought in 2022 and officers responded at 10:25 a.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department told DailyMail.com.

“The death of an approximately 47-year-old man was confirmed, no transportation,” they said in a statement.

“We responded to the 2100 block of Fern Dale Place for a death investigation. Officers responded to a male deceased,” the Los Angeles Police Department added to DailyMail.com. The Life After Beth director was pronounced dead at the scene.

Plaza and Baena met in 2011 during a game of Balderdash, according to a GQ profile of the actress.

They lived together for about a decade before tying the knot in 2020 during the Covid lockdown.

The Parks and Recreation alum supported her then-boyfriend, starring in his directorial debut Life After Beth, a zombie comedy, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.

The couple also worked together in 2017 on The Little Hours, about a young man in the Middle Ages who pretends to be deaf and mute so he can hide in a monastery, which creates quite a temptation for the nuns.

Although the pair was rarely seen together in public, Baena spoke about his work process in a joint interview with Plaza Silver Screen Riot in 2017.

“Honestly, I don’t bounce ideas off anyone,” Baena said at the time.

‘It is not a free choice, I have created a kind of isolated space. When I first started, I was co-writing with someone, so I was so used to exchanging ideas, so I have that inner dialogue instead of putting it out there.”

“With Aubrey, it’s more about her character and what she’s going through, and not about the movie itself,” he explained, adding, “But we’re not really working together right now in terms of co-writing things.”

Plaza’s husband, writer and director Jeff Baena, 47, was found dead in a Los Angeles home on Friday, January 3. Cause of death has not been released (photo in Culver City, CA in June 2017)

The very private couple was rarely seen together in public. They met in 2011 and worked together on 2014’s Life After Beth and 2017’s The Little Hours (pictured in Park City, UT in January 2014)

Plaza made her directorial debut in 2021 in Showtime’s anthology series, Cinema Toast, created by Baena.

That same year, the White Lotus star casually revealed that their wedding had taken place in a social media post ahead of the release of 2022’s Spin Me Round. “So proud of my sweet husband @jeffbaena for coming up with another movie that takes us to Italy to cause more trouble,” she wrote.

Baena is survived by Plaza, his parents: Barbara Stern, stepfather Roger Stern, father Scott Baena and stepmother Michele Baena, along with brother Brad Baena and step-siblings Bianca Gabay and Jed Fluxman.

A statement released to Term said ‘the family is devastated and requests privacy during this difficult time.’