Taika Waititi’s ex-wife Chelsea Winstanley gives scathing take on couple’s marriage

The New Zealand director’s ex has given rare insight into their abrupt split, in which Waititi moved on with pop star Rita Ora.

Taika Waititi's ex-wife Chelsea has given a blistering interview about the director.

Taika Waititi’s ex-wife has given a blistering take on the couple’s relationship, which ended in 2018.

New Zealand film producer Chelsea Winstanley, 48, gave a rare interview about their marriage breakdown on new podcast, It’s Personal.

Waititi, also 48, married Winstanley in 2011. They share two young daughters.

“I think I was married to someone who really was just on their own buzz, and [had] tunnel vision for whatever reasons,” a candid Winstanley said.

“It’s nice to have someone who can support you, or just to go, ‘you got this’ or ‘I’m so proud of you’. But there was never any of that.

“There was no interest in what I wanted to be doing. So that said volumes.”

The pair, whose separation only became public in 2020, had met over a decade earlier when Winstanley interviewed him for a documentary.

Things began to unravel in 2016 when Waititi’s star was on the rise, which saw Winstanley – an Academy Award nominated producer – feel pressured to take a back seat from her own work.

Taika Waititi and ex-wife Chelsea Winstanley at the premiere of Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok in October 2017. Picture: AAP Image/Regi Varghese

“I didn’t want to be the dutiful wife and race over to the Gold Coast where he was making Thor [Ragnarok] and sit in an apartment all day long f***ing twiddling my thumb,” she said.

“I mean, lots of other wives do that in other departments and they’ll dutifully do that thing. But I couldn’t think of anything f***ing worse to go to the Gold Coast. I’m sorry.

“And also that would mean I have to take my babies out of kōhanga reo [Maori-speaking kindergarten]. And that to me was really important.

“So I said, ‘I’m not going to do that, but we’ll come over and visit’. That probably was the beginning of the unravelling because I wasn’t that pandering, dutiful. Get on my knees and whatever you want.

“Someone else was, though.”

Rita Ora and Taika Waititi have been married since August 2022. Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images for MTV

The couple are thought to have met in 2018. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

Waititi is now married to British pop star Rita Ora.

The A-list pair first sparked dating rumours in mid-2021, however, they are thought to have first met in 2018.

On Valentine’s Day in 2022, Ora shared a throwback Instagram photo of the pair taken four years prior.

“Us. 4 years ago. To now,” she captioned the photo. “thanks for being cool. And entertaining me forevs. Happy Valentine’s Day bestie.”

They held a wedding at their Los Angeles home in August 2022, news which they didn’t share publicly until the following January.

Originally published as Taika Waititi’s ex-wife Chelsea Winstanley gives scathing take on couple’s marriage