"I was getting used to love." Marc Maron on losing Lynne when they had just found each other.

On Friday, Lynn Shelton, who directed films including Your Sister’s Sister and Humpday, died suddenly in Los Angeles.

The 54-year-old, who also directed episodes of TV shows including Glow, Mad Men, New Girl, and Master of None, died of an undiagnosed blood disorder.

Shelton’s partner, comedian and actor Marc Maron, confirmed the news in an emotional statement, sharing that Shelton had collapsed after being ill for a week.

We lost our dear friend Lynn Shelton. We made so many things together. I wish we had made more. Her boundless creative energy and infectious spirit were unrivaled. She made me better. We butted heads, made up, laughed, pushed each other. Like family. What a deep loss. pic.twitter.com/LcowmbGqum

— Mark Duplass (@MarkDuplass) May 16, 2020

“There was a previously unknown, underlying condition. It was not COVID-19. The doctors could not save her. They tried. Hard,” he said in a statement, released to Indiewire.

“I loved her very much as I know many of you did as well. It’s devastating. I am levelled, heartbroken and in complete shock and don’t really know how to move forward in this moment,” he continued.

“She was a beautiful, kind, loving, charismatic artist. Her spirit was pure joy. She made me happy. I made her happy. We were happy. I made her laugh all the time. We laughed a lot. We were starting a life together. I really can’t believe what is happening. This is a horrendous, sad loss.”

Speaking on his podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, on Monday, Maron paid tribute to his late girlfriend.

“She was my partner. She was my girlfriend. She was my friend. And I love her. I loved her. A lot. And she loved me, and I knew that,” he said.

“I don’t know that I had ever felt what I felt with her before. I do know, actually. I did not. I have not. I was getting used to love in the way of being able to accept it and show it properly in an intimate relationship,” he continued, while tearing up.

“I was so comfortable with this person, with Lynn Shelton – and I’m not really that comfortable emotionally or otherwise – I was able to exist in a place of self-acceptance because of her love for me.

“I made her laugh all the time, and she made me laugh, and we were happy. We laughed a lot. We played Crazy Eights, we cooked food together, we travelled, we wrote.”

On Twitter and Instagram, actors including Mark Duplass, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Kerry Washington paid tribute to the acclaimed director.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

I’m so devastated to hear about Lynn Shelton’s passing yesterday. I’m in complete shock that this vibrant, talented, and soulful filmmaker is no longer with us. Lynn was so passionate about our show, Little Fires Everywhere. She said the book truly spoke to her, and that she longed to direct a show that spoke meaningfully about motherhood, sexuality, race, and class in America. And she did. She cared deeply about the WHOLE cast and crew, making sure we all felt heard, seen and appreciated. Lynn also shared so much of her life with us. Her love of her son, how motherhood changed her life, her life changing decisions that made her the woman she was. I feel so fortunate that I got to collaborate with Lynn on both The Morning Show and Little Fires Everywhere. Her spirit touched so many people in the filmmaking world. Her memory lives on in our vivid days together on set and in her wonderful films. Please watch her work and see her talent for yourself. #RestInPeaceLynn ????????????????

A post shared by Reese Witherspoon (@reesewitherspoon) on May 16, 2020 at 2:19pm PDT

“I’m so devastated to hear about Lynn Shelton’s passing yesterday. I’m in complete shock that this vibrant, talented, and soulful filmmaker is no longer with us,” Witherspoon wrote on Instagram.

“Lynn Shelton loved actors and we loved her back. She was a dream on set,” Kaling posted on Twitter.

Marc Maron and Lynn Shelton’s relationship

Marc Maron, 56, first confirmed his relationship with Shelton on his popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, in late 2019, following months of speculation.

In recent months, Maron and Shelton, who has a son from a previous marriage, had been living together in Los Angeles.

But while Shelton appeared as a guest on Maron’s podcast in both 2015 and 2018, the pair kept their relationship relatively private.

Maron, who also appeared in Glow, which featured episodes directed by Shelton, is best known for his hugely popular podcast, which he launched from his Los Angeles garage in 2009.

Since its inception, the podcast has featured celebrity guests including Barack Obama, Paul McCartney, and the late Robin Williams.

After over 10 years and more than 1,100 episodes, the podcast now gets over seven million downloads a month, making it one of the most popular podcasts in the world.

Unlike many other celebrities, Marc Maron’s career trajectory can be best described as a “fall and rise”, rather than the more commonly known “rise and fall”.

At the beginning of his career in the late 1980s, Maron was an aspiring stand up comedian. It was a cutthroat scene and as Maron struggled to cut through, he began to abuse drugs and alcohol.

In the 1990s, much of Maron's stand-up style was influenced by his addictions and his onstage persona was built on anger, self-hatred, and arrogance.

"My comfort zone is uncomfortable, and it has been my entire life," he told NPR.

"Being sort of anxious and uncomfortable has really been my home base, innately. And I don't know how to change that, and that's really the challenge for me now."

Besides his struggle in cutting through the stand-up scene, Maron has also attributed his addictions to his difficult relationship with his parents.

While Maron's father struggled with "a mania problem", his mother was "strangely self-involved".

As per The Guardian, Maron's mother once told him she didn't know whether she could love him if he was overweight.

"That’s the one thing that persists – the food stuff, which my mother gave me," he told the publication.

 

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#timetoforage #outintheworld #covidlife

A post shared by Lynn Shelton (@thelynnshelton) on Mar 31, 2020 at 6:59pm PDT

"I think it’s my deepest issue, more than the drugs. I don’t deny myself food any more, but I still beat myself up about it. I guess it’s about self-loathing and control."

Amid battling body issues, Maron often relied on cocaine for confidence – another factor which fuelled his cocaine addiction in the 1990s.

"It makes you feel built up," he told The Guardian.

"I used to sit at home with some whiskey, do a few lines of cocaine, and call my mother. I'd be like, 'I'm doing goooood!'"

Although Maron's comedy style has evolved over the years, the 56-year-old still describes himself as having "an asshole that lives in me".

Much of that change in his comedy style can be attributed to his long running commitment to sobriety.

Although he describes getting sober as a lengthy experience, Maron has been sober since August 9, 1999.

"I was sort of in and out for years. It took me like 24, 25 years to get the years [of sobriety] in a row that I have, because that never really locked in," he told NPR.

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"The last bottom I guess I hit, the real one, was I was in an awkward marriage. I was using cocaine and drinking behind my wife's back, and I would go on the road and it was getting ugly and I really just was lying in bed next to a sleeping woman with my heart pounding, just really wanting to die," he continued.

"I had surrendered to the idea that I was not going to be a big comic, I was not going to have a TV career. I was doing segments for a regional show in New York on something called the Metro Channel, and I really had resigned myself to failure and to hopelessness."

Maron's first marriage, which he mentioned while speaking to NPR, was to Kimberly Reiss.

The marriage ended in Maron's early 30s, because, as Maron told The Guardian, "I was bad news – angry, druggie, drunk".

Following his marriage to Reiss, Maron married writer and former stand up comedian, Mishna Wolff, who helped him get sober.

"My second divorce was probably the most devastating thing I ever went through," Maron recalled, speaking to The Guardian.

"I do have some closure around all that stuff, but I can get back into that place. You know, if you get someone talking about a divorce, especially if you're a man who's been screwed over by one, the angry passion just comes right back."

Following his second divorce, much of Maron's new stand up tour, Scorching The Earth, focused on their relationship breakdown.

As a result, the former couple are no longer in contact.

"She can't stand me," the comedian told The Guardian.

"I think that some of my behaviour was not great. It was emotionally abusive in some ways. But [there was] emotional turbulence between two people in a relationship, and I was an angry person – you've got to be allowed to have that."

Following his divorce, Maron became engaged to girlfriend Jessica Sanchez, before the pair called off their engagement in October 2013.

He went on to date American actress Moon Zapp, before dating visual artist Sarah Cain.

Following his two marriage breakdowns and his failed engagement with Sanchez, Maron endeavored to keep his relationship with Shelton relatively private.

"With a lovely woman now. Film director. Very happy," he tweeted in August, 2019.

Feature Image: Getty.

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