Fortune Feimster and Jacquelyn ‘Jax’ Smith are heading for divorce after 5-year marriage
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Fortune Feimster and her wife of five years, Jacquelyn “Jax” Smith, are divorcing, the former couple posted Monday on social media.
“Together, we have made the difficult decision to end our marriage,” they wrote in a statement posted on their Instagram accounts. “We’ve been separated for a little bit, both of us dealing with tough health situations in our families, so it wasn’t something we were ready to talk about.”
Lest you think Chelsea Handler, at 50, is slowing down, on Tuesday she releases her third Netflix comedy special, ‘The Feeling,’ which overlaps thematically with her recently published seventh book, ‘I’ll Have What She’s Having.’
They continued, “While we are sad to see this chapter of our lives come to a close, we wish each other nothing but the best as we move forward. We’ve had 10 years together, and there’s so much to celebrate about that and so much we will look back on fondly.”
“The Mindy Project” actor, a Groundlings veteran, requested privacy in the wake of the news.
Smith was a kindergarten teacher and later joined Feimster’s creative team, executive producing three of her comedy specials, “Sweet & Salty” in 2020, “Good Fortune” in 2022 and “Crushing It” in 2024. The two met at a 2015 Pride event in Chicago, dated long distance for a few years, got engaged in 2018 and married in a small ceremony during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The women’s families attended the wedding via Zoom.
The comedian talks about how her past as an entertainment journalist and improv actor helped shape her current success in stand-up and TV
“I want people to know me and Jax are like everybody else,” the 44-year-old comedian told People in October 2022. “We happen to be gay but our story is not much different from other people’s. ... You don’t have to be gay to relate to an engagement story.”
Divorce? Definitely — albeit unfortunately — relatable.
Feimster credits Chelsea Handler with launching her career as a writer-performer-standup comedian. She is credited as a writer on almost 600 episodes of “Chelsea Lately” between 2011 and 2014.
“She was putting people on TV that no one else was putting on TV,” Feimster told The Times in 2023, “and not really caring if you fit the mold of who should be on TV. ... She was the first person who gave me the ‘yes’ when everyone was telling me ‘no.’”
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