Joshua Jackson’s Ex Lupita Nyong’o Says She Was Ready to Not Have Another Relationship After Their Romance

In late September, rumors that Joshua Jackson and his rumored girlfriend Lupita Nyong’o were circling around. Then, at the New York City premiere of FX’s Grotesquerie, Jackson was pictured with another woman. Luckily, after a lot of head-scratching from fans, Nyong’o is setting the record straight.

In a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the Oscar-winner revealed that she is single, and enjoying her life as a cat mom to her orange kitty, Yoyo.

“My love for my cat is singular,” she told the outlet. “If I’m ever so lucky to be in a romantic relationship again, it’ll be because of him.”

Per Nyong’o, her past relationships and breakups were a bit too traumatizing to put herself out there again. That is, of course, until Yoyo came along. “I was ready to shut that door and lock it and bolt it,” she said. “He has ensured that my heart remains open.”

Prior to her relationship with the Dawson’s Creek alum, which first went public in October 2023 when they attended a concert together, Nyong’o dated musician and TV host Selema Masekela. From her posts about their breakup in October 2023, it was clear that their split devastated Nyong’o.

“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 at the time. “I find myself in a season of heartbreak because of a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception.”

“You go through a lot of like, ‘Why? What were the signs? Why didn’t I see them? And if I did, why didn’t I act on them?’” Nyong’o said of her time after their split. “Also, replaying moments and thinking, ‘Oh, I felt this apprehension, and I ignored it. Why did I ignore it?’ It can get toxic to beat yourself up about a past you can’t change, but it’s also an opportunity to learn about yourself.”

“It’s hard enough to go through heartbreak privately,” Nyong’o reflected on sharing her relationship with Masekela with the world. “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.”

With the breakups with Masekela and Jackson still stinging, it seems Nyong’o is taking the time to heal and learn about herself in the process. Luckily, she has Yoyo by her side no matter what.

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