Chelsea Winstanley and Taika Waititi Share 2 Daughters — All We Know about Her and Their Marriage

While Chelsea Winstanley is probably best known as Taika Waititi’s wife of almost a decade, she is a very talented film producer and documentary director. Unfortunately, she's faced many challenges in life.

Born in New Zealand in the mid-70s, Chelsea Winstanley’s childhood was quite difficult. When she was only seven years old, her parents, John and Cherry, divorced.

Initially, Winstanley stayed with her dad, who runs a home improvement business. When he remarried, though, she moved to Auckland with Cherry, a psychotherapist who fell in love with filmmaking after watching a documentary.

CHELSEA WINSTANLEY’S ABUSE STORY

It was also at seven years old that a person she knew sexually abused her. The producer explained the incident made her angry even after years of therapy.

She said she’s “swept it under the carpet” most of her life, but it keeps surfacing as it took away her innocence without her consent. The most significant consequence of the abuse is her inability to trust other people.

Winstanley admitted she grew up believing it was her fault and thinking she’s not worthy of much. She kept what happened to herself for a long time because the incident showed her older people couldn’t be trusted.

Even if she wanted to talk about it, “no one’s going to understand you” at seven years old due to the lack of vocabulary or knowledge to articulate what happened.

Winstanley also said she wanted to confront her abuser but knows that everybody, including her abuser, deals with their own demons, so she is not pressing charges.

[Winstanley wants] to focus on working with women so that they have “some kind of equal representation.”

MORE STRUGGLES

Just before turning 21 years old, Winstanley gave birth to Maia, her son. Three months later, the boy’s dad walked away, so she was forced to raise her boy alone.

One year later, one of her friends – who was raising two boys – decided to study at Waikato University, so Winstanley joined her. Life had more challenges prepared for her as she almost died in a car crash.

She broke her leg and spent six months learning to walk again. After feeling depressed for a while, she read an article about balancing work and parenthood and transferred her communications degree to Auckland University of Technology.

Once in Auckland, she could spend more time studying as her mom could take care of Maia. She graduated top of the class, majored in television, and was hired at Kiwa Productions.

Nowadays, Chelsea Winstanley is one of the most famous female filmmakers from New Zealand and directed the Media Peace Award-winning documentary “Tame Iti: The Man Behind the Moko.”

Back in 2019, she admitted she wanted to focus on working with women so that they have “some kind of equal representation,” especially because she spent most of her life helping men make movies.

RELATIONSHIP WITH TAIKA WAITITI

One of those men is director Taika Waititi, who joined forces with Winstanley for “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Jojo Rabbit.” It is important to point out that they were married at the time.

The former couple met in her 20s as she interviewed him for a documentary about Māori artists. In 2010, they reconnected, tied the knot two years later, and share two children, Te Hinekāhu and Matewa Kiritapu.

In 2020, Taika Waititi and Chelsea Winstanley made headlines after it was reported they had been separated since 2018. Since then, he has been spotted with a couple of women, including his assistant Polly Stoker.

At the moment, Winstanley’s ex-husband is reportedly in a relationship with singer Rita Ora. She seemingly confirmed their relationship by posting a photo showing Waititi hugging her. As per Winstanley, it is unclear if she’s dating again.