The Bear star Ebon Moss-Bachrach and partner Yelena Yemchuk share two daughters and have been together for years — but their first interaction wasn’t exactly a meet-cute.
The pair began dating a year and a half after meeting at a dinner party in New York, where Yemchuk was initially turned off by Moss-Bachrach’s career. Despite her first impression being less than romantic, she shared her changed perception with The New Yorker in 2022.
“Ebon is the least actor-y actor I’ve ever met,” Yemchuk said at the time. “You’re just not obsessed with yourself,” she added to Moss-Bachrach.
After the duo began dating, they eventually welcomed daughters Sasha in 2007 and Maribelle in 2010. Like his character on The Bear, cooking for the women in his life is another unexpected trait the girl dad enjoys incorporating into his daily life.
“I used to cook, before I met Ebon,” Yemchuk shared. “I’m just not as good. He has a real gift.”
Moss-Bachrach took on cooking after the birth of their first daughter and found himself loving it.
“When my kids were little,” he reminisced in a 2023 interview with SHARP, “we’d go out and find our ingredients and think about what we’re going to do and then bring it back and start preparing everything. That’s a great day!”
Keep scrolling to see more about the couple’s relationship:
Late ‘90s
Moss-Bachrach and Yemchuk have never specified when they met, but they’ve shared how. The two attended a friend’s dinner party in New York. The Punisher actor wasn’t single at the time.
“When I saw Ebon, I was, like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s cute. Who is this guy?’” Yemchuk told The New Yorker in 2022. “My friend was, like, ‘Forget it, he has a girlfriend and he’s an actor.’ And I was, like, ‘Ugh!’ When you think of an actor as a boyfriend, that’s not where you want to go. They just seem like such a pain in the ass.”
Despite an unlikely start, the pair started dating a year and a half later.
2007
The couple welcomed their first daughter, Sasha. “You know how it is: you have a baby, and it’s like you’re the first person to have a baby in the history of the world,” Moss-Bachrach later told The New Yorker of being a new dad. “And the world is full of poison, and you’re trying not to screw up. So I started making her baby food.”
2010
The pair welcomed their second daughter, Mirabelle, in December.
2015
The couple made an appearance together at the premiere of The Hateful Eight in New York City.
2023
Moss-Bachrach talked to SHARP in 2023, sharing rare insight into maintaining a romance with a fellow creator. (Yemchuk is a photographer.)
“Our lives work well together,” he explained. “For example, I’ve been in Chicago for the last three months, and as this work is winding down, she has the potential to do more on her end. This is her time.”
He also noted how helpful it is to have his parents living nearby. “They don’t work anymore, and they help take care of our two daughters, bridging times when neither Yelena and I are here,” he said. “If I was living with another actor, I think that would be harder.”
2024
The Bear was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the 2024 Emmy Awards. Moss-Bachrach, for his part, received a nod for Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, which ultimately went to Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen.
Prior to the ceremony, Moss-Bachrach walked the red carpet in a sleek black suit alongside Yemchuk, who donned a colorful ruffled gown.
