Forest Whitaker’s ex-wife, Keisha Nash-Whitaker, dies aged 51

Actor Keisha Nash-Whitaker, the ex-wife of The Last King of Scotland star Forest Whitaker, has died. She was 51.

The pair married in Jamaica in 1996. Whitaker filed for divorce in 2018 citing “irreconcilable differences”, according to multiple reports.

They shared two children: Sonnet, 27, and True, 25. Nash-Whitaker was also the mother of 32-year-old daughter Autumn while Whitaker has a 33-year-old son, Ocean, both born from previous relationships.

The ex-couple’s youngest daughter, True, shared the news of her mother’s death on her Instagram Story early Thursday morning (7 December), writing: “Goodbye mommy. I love you 4ever and beyond.

“The most beautiful woman in the world … thank you for teaching me every single thing I know. I’ll see you in my dreams and I’ll feel you in my heart.”

The Independent has approached Whitaker’s representative for comment.

The former couple met on the set of Whitaker’s 1994 action thriller Blown Away when Nash-Whitaker was cast to portray his character’s girlfriend. Nash-Whitaker said that before they had met, she had seen him in 1991’s crime-comedy A Rage in Harlem.

“Right away, I thought Forest had a gentle soul and a nice spirit,” she said of the 62-year-old The Butler actor in a 2020 interview with Essence.

“I’m not a tough love guy. To be honest, my wife is much stronger with the kids than I am,” Whitaker said of his then-wife in a 2009 interview with Parade.

“They come to me when they’re trying to slip something by. I have to always take a pause, when they come and say, ‘Hey Dad, is it OK if we do this?’ So I just look at them like, ‘Have you talked to your mom about that?’ They know I’m the easy one.”

Born in Boston, Massachusetts on 8 March 1972, Nash-Whitaker was best known for her role as Collette in the 2004 documentary-drama Proud and for her work as a producer on the 2008 documentary Kassim the Dream.