Ali Wong reveals her mom's dark reaction to her divorce

Ali Wong is opening up about her divorce from ex-husband Justin Hakuta for the first time.

Last year, Wong and Hakuta confirmed they were separating after eight years of marriage. The stand-up comic, who is on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter’s March 1 issue, spoke to the publication about breaking the news to her mom that her relationship was ending.

“I did not expect the announcement to be so widespread, but by far the hardest part about getting divorced was my mother’s reaction,” she shared. “I had told her before that I thought we might get divorced, and she was really upset.”

She recalled her mother looking her in the eye and asking, “‘Can you just wait until I die?’” before splitting from Hakuta.

Wong added, “She was literally asking me to not live a life for myself.”

“But she’s 82, what do I expect? She hasn’t had her period in 40 years,” the comedian joked. “She’s in the sha-ha-hallows of senior citizenship. But it was still really f—ing hard dealing with all her fear of the shame it would bring her.”

During the difficult time in her life, one plus side to her separation making headlines was that her mother did not have to inform any of her friends. Instead, they all called her mom after reading the news in a few Chinese and Vietnamese newspapers.

“She died a million deaths in one day and then woke up the next day and was like, ‘I survived,’” Wong said, adding that her mother still frequently spends time with Hakuta.

In April 2022, TODAY.com received confirmation from Wong’s rep that the comic and Hakuta had called it quits. The former couple tied the knot in 2014 after previously meeting at a friend’s wedding.

Wong's popular stand up specials, such as 2016’s “Ali Wong: Baby Cobra” and 2018’s “Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife,” included many jokes about married life. She would also make quips about their two daughters: Mari, born in 2015, and Nikki, born in 2017.

The “Always Be My Maybe” star told THR she is not concerned about fans dissecting past material or possibly analyzing future jokes for hints about her personal life.

“I can’t help that,” the 40-year-old said. “Not really.”

She further explained, “I don’t put the pressure of ‘this is the whole me’ (on my work). All of this — my stand-up, ‘Beef,’ ‘Always Be My Maybe,’ how I am with my friends, how they relay a conversation I had with them — is never going to be the whole truth. It is always going to be an abstraction of truth, and I think that’s very comforting.”

Wong pointed out that she cannot predict how audiences interpret her films or jokes.

“That’s not the goal. The goal is to surprise them and make them laugh and make myself laugh and have fun,” she said.

Although they called it quits, Wong and Hakuta, a tech executive who was also her tour manager, remain close friends. She even played pickleball with Hakuta before sitting down for her interview with the publication.

“We’ve been through so much together. It’s a very unconventional divorce,” she said.

The writer and producer revealed that Hakuta will join her and their daughters when her comedy tour starts in June. Hakuta also watched the first two episodes of her upcoming series “Beef,” where Wong will take on her first dramatic leading role opposite Oscar-nominee and “Nope” star Steven Yeun.

In the Netflix dramedy, which will be released on April 6, Wong plays a working mom and wife who is involved in a road rage incident.

Wong said she is looking forward to taking the next step in her career. She referred to this chapter as the “first trimester of life.”

Speaking about the role, Wong said, “For me — and I’ll leave it up for interpretation what this means — it was a way to say what I’ve been wanting to say about relationships and being a working mom that I haven’t found a way to talk about onstage.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com