Keisha Whitaker, Ex-Wife of Forest Whitaker, Dead at 51

Keisha Whitaker, the former wife of Hollywood actor Forest Whitaker, has died at the age of 51. Keisha and the Godfather of Harlem star, 62, were married for over 20 years before they divorced in 2021.

 The ex-partners, who wed back in 1996, had four kids together: daughters Sonnet, 27, and True, 25, as well as Forest's son Ocean, 33, from a previous marriage, and Keisha's daughter Autumn, 32, from a previous relationship. 

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On Thursday morning, Dec. 7, True confirmed the news of Keisha's passing to her followers on Instagram Stories, where she posted images that illustrated her mom's life over the years.

"goodbye mommy," she wrote next to an old sepia-toned photo of her mom. "I love you 4ever and beyond." True wrote further on the post, where she described her mother as "the most beautiful woman in the world" before adding, "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," was the emotional conclusion to the message, accompanied by some older pictures of her late mother. "There's no one more important to me," she wrote beside another image. At this point, there is no information regarding the cause of Keisha's death, as well as the circumstances of her passing. 

It was on the set of Blown Away in 1994 that Forest and Keisha first met. Keisha had previously told Essence that she had seen Forest's performance in A Rage in Harlem in 1991 and considered him to be a man with "a gentle soul and a nice spirit."

In 2007, she told Extra of their encounter, "It really was the first time we hung out," Keisha recalled. "It just worked." She also discussed their home life and how she sometimes had to get Forest to leave his work at the set and focus on the household. "If I get him involved in moving something across the room, it's, 'What is my motivation?' And I'm like, 'No honey, we're just moving the chair.'"

In 1995, the former couple was married in Jamaica, and their first daughter, Sonnet, who has since become an accomplished actress herself, was born the year after their union. In a number of reports, court records indicated that Forest filed for divorce in 2018 due to "irreconcilable differences."

The actor, who has appeared in blockbuster films like Black Panther, The Butler, and dozens of others, did not immediately issue a statement about his former partner's passing.