Chelsea Winstanley isn't holding her tongue on her separation and subsequent divorce from director-actor Taika Waititi.
Earlier this month, Winstanley appeared on an episode of the podcast, It's Personal with Anika Moa, where she opened up about the breakdown in her marriage with the Jojo Rabbit director. The two wed in 2011 after Winstanley interviewed Waititi for a documentary, but reportedly separated in 2018. In 2021, Waititi began dating singer-actress Rita Ora, whom he married in 2022.
According to Winstanley, "resentment" brewed when Waititi worked on other film projects while she was left to take care of their two daughters, Te Kāinga o te Hinekāhu, 11, and Matewa Kiritapu, 7.
Around the 22-minute mark of the video below, Moa asked Winstanley about her "mahi" (Māori for "work") being secondary to Waititi's projects.
“To be really, brutally honest, I probably started forming a bit of resentment in that moment," Winstanley said. "You don't make a human being on your own, therefore, you shouldn't have to raise a human being on your own, either. When that little seed of resentment was starting to form...I want to be really honest and own my participation in that, in the unraveling of our relationship."
Winstanley and her daughters hung back while Waititi filmed his 2017 Marvel debut, Thor: Ragnarok, where she admitted to not wanting to "sit in an apartment all day long, fucking twiddling my thumbs, and bring the kids out."
Adding that she didn't want to take her daughters out of school but opted to "'come over and visit,'" Winstanley alluded to the distance giving room to infidelity on Waititi's end. "That probably was the beginning of the unraveling because I wasn’t that pandering, dutiful, get on my knees and whatever you want. Someone else was, though," she continued, suggesting that the filmmaker cheated. "I didn't know that until many years later."
Elsewhere, Winstanley reflected on her marriage and said that Waititi was "someone who really was on their own buzz and tunnel vision." "We're all on our own journey, so to help me get through on a daily basis, I just remind myself that I'm not responsible for what anybody does. I'm only responsible for the way in which I react," she continued. "As time goes by, you're actually angry at yourself for not believing that you deserved better."
With the exes having moved on individually and as co-parents, Winstanley has maintained a career as a film producer, while Waititi left the MCU in 2022. Next, he'll direct the sci-fi dystopian film, Klara and the Sun, starring Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams.
