Lupita Nyong'o has shared that the rumors she was dating Jared Leto impacted their friendship.
In a new cover story with Glamour, the Us and A Quiet Place: Day One star opened up about those rumors, which circulated after the pair became friends during the 2014 awards season. “I paid no attention," she said. "I actually deafened my ears to all the discourse about the awards because I was going through so many firsts. The red carpet was new, everything was new to me."
While she's still friends with Leto—who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Dallas Buyers Club the same year Nyong'o won Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave—she said she "didn't love" how the rumors impacted their friendship.
"I can hit him up about things; we see each other, and it's always a warm experience," she said. "It was drawing attention away from the work. I didn’t want that sort of attention. I didn’t want all that chatter to deter from the joy I was having becoming his friend.”
Last year, Nyong'o was spotted holding hands with Canadian actor Joshua Jackson, but she has yet to comment on the nature of their relationship. They've since been seen vacationing in Mexico together, too.
In October 2023, she shared an uncharacteristically open statement about her split from boyfriend Selema Masekela in a post on Instagram.
"I wanted to be honest," she told Glamour. "Honestly, the thought of having to update people one at a time was going to be harrowing. I had made the choice to share the relationship with the world, and I wanted to make the choice to share the end of it with the world."
While the 41-year-old doesn't regret publicly speaking about the end of her relationship, she added that she won't be that transparent about her private life in the future. "There is a time to be open and there’s a time not to be, and I chose that time to be open," she said. "I’m very happy with what I did, and I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to share that part of myself anymore."
