Almost a year after announcing her divorce from Justin Hakuta, Ali Wong reflected on their current relationship, co-parenting their two daughters (now 5 and 7), and her dramatic debut in A24’s upcoming dark comedy series, Beef.
“We’re very close. We’re best friends,” she told The Hollywood Reporter of her husband. “We’ve been through so much together. It’s a very unusual divorce.”
In fact, when Ali goes back on tour in June, Justin and their daughters will be traveling with her. This time, her material includes her life after divorce and being single. “I think we’ll call it the Single Lady tour,” she said.
While her divorce and subsequent co-parenting with Justin has been amicable, Ali revealed that her 82-year-old mother was not told so smoothly. “The hardest part about the divorce was my mother’s reaction.”
“I had told her before that I thought we might divorce, and she was very upset. She looked me in the eye and asked, ‘Can you wait until I die?’ me?’ She literally asked me not to live for myself,” said Ali. “It was still very difficult to deal with her fear of the shame it would bring her.”
However, because the news of her divorce was so widespread – which Ali did not expect – her mother did not have to tell any of her friends about it. Instead, they found out in Chinese and Vietnamese newspapers. “They all named her,” Ali said. “She died a million deaths in one day and then she woke up the next day and she was like, ‘I survived.’ She still sees Justin a ton.”
Now, Ali is focused on promotion Beef, which “follows the aftermath of a road rage incident between two strangers.” Steven Yeun plays one outsider, and Ali plays the other: a self-made entrepreneur, wife and mother who crumbles under the pressure of being the breadwinner.
“For me – and I’ll leave it to you to explain what this means – it was a way to say what I wanted to say about relationships and being a working mother that I couldn’t find a way to talk about. platform,” Ali said of the role.
Beef was released on Netflix on April 6, and Ali had just watched the first two episodes with her husband, who told her afterward, “Ali, it’s really good.”
Read Ali’s full interview with The Hollywood Reporter here.
