Lupita Nyong'o Breaks Up With TV Star Selema Masekela After One Year

Kenyan-Mexican award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o and her boyfriend, Selema Masekela have parted ways.

The 40-year-old Oscar-winning actress penned a lengthy Instagram statement on Thursday, October 20 revealing that she was publicly disassociating with Masekela, without directly mentioning his name, citing mistrust.

"There are many more important things going on in the world right now, and my thoughts are with those who are deeply suffering.

"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 in part.

A past photo of Lupita Nyong'o and Selema Masekela. /PEOPLE

Nyong'o, daughter to Kisumu Governor Anyang' Nyong'o, shared how she was thrust into a season of heartbreak which she blamed on a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception.

She further revealed that she was tempted to run into the shadows and hide, only to return to the light upon regaining her strength enough for her to say, “Whatever, my life is better this way.”

"But I am reminded that the magnitude of the pain I am feeling is equal to the measure of my capacity for love. And so, I am choosing to face the pain, cultivating the courage to meet my life exactly as it is, and trusting that this too shall pass. The promise, they say, is that a tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness.

"I hope it’s true… I share this to keep it 100, and I hope that the knowledge of my experience might be useful to someone else out there experiencing the grip of heartbreak who is poised to try and escape from the pain and miss out on the wisdom that comes from it," Nyong'o continued, concluding with "Let’s face our pain so we don’t spread it."

Nyong'o and Masekela had only dated for less than a year and the split comes after she introduced him to the world through a video shared on her Instagram that went viral globally on December 23, 2022.

At the time, she shared a series of synchronized videos compiled to one showing her and Masekela snapping along while shifting to different outfits, including their beach wear, with the remix of the song The King’s Affirmation by Iniko and Reuel Williams embedded in the clip.

Spot checks by Viral Tea revealed that Nyong'o pulled down all photos of her and Masekela, with the 51-year-old American television host, sports commentator, actor and singer doing likewise, despite him not issuing his statement on the split.

Viral Tea established in 2022 that Selema's fascination with Nyong'o started as far back as in 2016 when he described his experience of a chance encounter with the Black Panther actress when he appealed to Twitter users for help in the event that he happened to sit behind her in a passenger aircraft, which he did.

“Hypothetically speaking, of course, let’s say you’re seated behind Lupita Nyong’o on an aeroplane, what would be your opening line?

“Anyone comes up with a good opener for me with Lupita, send 'em. Cause I’m really sitting right behind her on this flight," read his tweet on April 5, 2016, while in Los Angeles, California, USA.

It must have taken the implementation of one of the many witty lines sent to him to win her over as it paid dividends five years later, with a lesson to men to shoot their shot, whether she's out of your league or not.

Masekela was born in Los Angeles, the son of a Haitian mother and South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela. He is also the older half-brother of Survivor: Cook Islands contestant Nathan Gonzalez.

He was raised in Staten Island, New York in the same class as rapper Method Man and in Carlsbad, California, where he attended Carlsbad High School. He is the co-founder of Berkela Motion Pictures with Jason Bergh.

TV host Selema Masekela during a surfing event. /FILE