Lupita Nyong’o explains why she went public with Selema Masekela split: ‘There is a time to be open’
Lupita Nyong’o said she “wanted to be honest” when she went public with her split from Selema Masekela last October after dealing with “deception.”
“Honestly, the thought of having to update people one at a time was going to be harrowing,” she told Glamour in a new interview published Monday.
“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,” she continued. “I knew that announcing it or sharing it with the world would mean there would be a reverb and I would have to deal with the onset of that.”
The “Black Panther” actress, 41, added: “There is a time to be open and there’s a time not to be, and I chose that time to be open.”
Nyong’o noted, however, that she will not be so open with her private life in the future.
“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,” she told the magazine.
The “Us” star went public with her relationship with Masekela, 52, in December 2022.
Ten months later, Nyong’o shared that her whirlwind romance with the sports commentator had ended.
“At this moment, it is necessary for me to share a personal truth and publicly dissociate myself from someone I can no longer trust…” she wrote on Instagram in October 2023.
“I find myself in a season of heartbreak because of a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception. I am tempted to run into the shadows and hide, only to return to the light when I have regained my strength enough for me to say, ‘Whatever, my life is better this way.’”
The Oscar winner didn’t stay heartbroken long as she quickly moved on with Joshua Jackson.
That same month, Nyong’o and the “Dawson’ Creek” alum, 45, were spotted together at Janelle Monáe’s “The Age of Pleasure” tour stop at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, Calif.
The pair confirmed their romance in December 2023 by holding hands while taking a stroll in Joshua Tree, Calif.
In March, Nyong’o and Jackson passionately kissed while celebrating her 41st birthday in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Neither Jackson nor the “12 Years a Slave” star have publicly spoken about their relationship.
