Despite their split, comedian Ali Wong and her ex-husband Justin Hakuta remain the best of friends. The BEEF star has been open about how unconventional their bond is since their split. After eight years of marriage and two children, the couple announced their divorce in 2022. Wong and Hakuta first met in 2010 at a friend’s wedding reception when Hakuta was still a student at Harvard Business School and a Fulbright scholar. Four years later, they wed at a courthouse. Their first daughter was born a year after their nuptials. Nikki, their second daughter, was born two years later.
Wong revealed that breaking the news to her mother was harder than the public’s reaction. “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 explained, Vanity Fair reports. “I had told her before that I thought we might get divorced, and she was really upset. She looked me in the eye and asked, ‘Can you just wait until I die?’ 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. She’s in the sha-ha-hallows of senior citizenship. But it was still really fucking hard dealing with all her fear of the shame it would bring her.”
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Wong continued, “But then, what was kind of cool about the announcement was that she didn’t have to tell any of her friends. All of them found out because it made it to a bunch of the Chinese and Vietnamese newspapers—I still can’t believe why on earth they would be interested in me—and they all called her. She died a million deaths in one day and then woke up the next day and was like, ‘I survived.’ She still sees Justin a ton.”
But it’s no surprise that things remain amicable between them. Wong has gushed about how smart and sensible her ex is during their marriage, using much of their relationship as inspiration for content for her stand-up specials.
Hakuta’s passion centers on justice. PEOPLE Magazine reports the scholar ironically comes from entertainment ties. His father is the TV inventor Ken Hakuta a.k.a. Dr. Fad, who developed a 1980s-era toy Wacky Wall Walker. Dr, Fad was also the host of kids’ invention program The Dr. Fad Show from 1988 to 1994.
His educational background is extensive. Hakuta graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a bachelor’s degree in decision science and a minor in Spanish. He then received a Fulbright scholarship to fund his field study, NGOs Combating Human Trafficking in the Philippines, and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
