Lupita Nyong’o says her cat has helped mend her broken heart. The actor adopted rescue cat Yoyo last year after her painful split from presenter Selema Masekela. Nyong’o said she was determined to “shut that door” after the breakup before finding a different kind of love with the kitty.
“My love for my cat is singular,” the Oscar-winning actor told Harper’s Bazaar. “If I’m ever so lucky to be in a romantic relationship again, it’ll be because of him. I was ready to shut that door and lock it and bolt it. He has ensured that my heart remains open.”
Nyong’o admitted she was actually scared of felines until she filmed this year’s A Quiet Place: Day One, which sees her character accompanied by a service cat.
“My family can’t get over it,” she laughed. “My sisters are so disturbed every time I send them a picture of Yoyo. They’re, like, ‘Oh my God, our sister has been stolen.’ ”
Last October, Nyong’o confirmed her split from Masekela and made reference to “deception” causing the end of their relationship.
“It is necessary for me to share a personal truth and publicly dissociate myself from someone I can no longer trust … I find myself in a season of heartbreak because of a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.
Now, the Us star has revealed she still “beats herself up” over not seeing the signs.
“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 explained. “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.”
And while she has been open about her relationship rollercoaster in public before, she is planning to be more reserved in the future.
“It’s hard enough to go through heartbreak privately,” she added. “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.”
