I believe a lot of the family life and storyline for Ali Wong’s character, Amy, in the hit Netflix show Beef is heavily inspired by Ali Wong’s real life. Obviously artists take loose inspiration from things that happen to them, but some of the things I noticed while watching the show were so obvious I just needed to talk about it and the possible insight into Ali Wong’s real life divorce last year. [SPOILERS AHEAD FOR BEEF]

Husbands

In the show, Amy Lau is married to a man named George Nakai. He is a Japanese-American man and the son of an extremely famous artist. Although he has tried to follow in his father’s footsteps with his art, he hasn’t found major success and constantly remains in his father’s shadow. George always believed that art would always come first in his life, but now his primary occupation is being a stay-at-home-father while Amy gains more and more success in her career. His own mother admits he has no talent. When Amy says that George is her anchor, George’s mother says that that might be true, but without her, he would still be at the bottom of the ocean. The main takeaway from the show about George’s character: George is ultimately a really good guy and a good father to their daughter, but he has never lived up to his full potential that was expected based on his father’s status. It is also emphasized that Amy and George come from very different socioeconomic backgrounds, and George is a bit more “old money.”

Justin Hakuta is also a Japanese-American man. He is the son of Ken Hakuta, a famous TV inventor known as “Dr. Fad.” He graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2004, received a Fulbright scholarship, and graduated from Harvard Business School in 2011. Ali Wong and her ex-husband met in 2010, and Ali said this about it in one of her comedy specials: “The first thing I learned about him was that, at the time, he was attending Harvard Business School. And I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm going to trap his ass." About her unexpected success, she said: "It was not supposed to go down like this. It was supposed to be him. I'm supposed to be the one chilling. He graduated from Harvard Business School. I have a BA from UCLA in Ethnic Studies.” Based on his LinkedIn, he started working for shorter periods of time since 2015, and there has been no updates since his latest position ended in February of 2019. Presumably, this is because of Ali Wong’s unexpected success as a comedian, with Netflix specials being released in 2016, 2018, and 2022. She also had a movie, Always Be My Maybe, come out in 2019. She’s said things that implied that her husband was on tour with her (more on that later). They divorced shortly after her last comedy special came out in 2022. However, they remain amicable co-parents to their two daughters. Wong has said: “We're best friends. We've been through so much together. It's a very unconventional divorce.” He is going on tour with her this summer as her tour manager and bringing their daughters along as well so that the family can be together.

Speculation: I truly believe that the character of George Nakai is a very thinly veiled stand-in for Ali Wong’s husband, Justin Hakuta. From having a famous father and seemingly limitless potential when they started dated, to the reality of George and (presumably) Justin becoming dissatisfied stay-at-home-fathers while Amy Lau and Ali Wong were achieving great success in their respective careers, the relationship arc is very similar. Some other similarities: George and Amy have a daughter that they love a lot and is a big reason why Amy stays in the relationship (Ali Wong and Justin Hakuta have two daughters), and George and Amy go to couples therapy in the show (Ali Wong has said that she goes to post-marital couples therapy with her ex-husband, which is why the divorce is very unconventional). Despite having their issues and getting divorced by the end, both couples seem to have a lot of love for each other and remain co-parenting their daughter/daughters. Which brings us into the reason for their divorce!

Infidelity/Relationship Issues

Moving into this section, I want to make it clear that these are just my opinions based on my interpretation of Beef and some very small knowledge of Ali Wong/Justin Hakuta. I don’t know these people personally and will never know how things really happened, so all of my speculation into the reason for their relationship ending is truly just a guess/artistic interpretation of the show.

In Beef, George Nakai has a short emotional affair with a young, conventionally attractive white woman named Mia that works for Amy Lau. The affair is hinted at from the beginning of the show, when Amy sees that her husband liked every single one of Mia’s Instagram posts. Later, he accidentally sends Amy a screenshot of one of Mia’s instagram posts, where she is only wearing a bra, instead of his intended picture. It is revealed that he saved this picture to his phone to masturbate with. Amy is definitely aware of this strange attachment that George has to Mia and hurt by it, but she moves past it (because she was doing much worse things LOL). Also, I personally don’t think Amy thought that Mia and George had any sort of in-person relationship, but it is revealed that they did. He is seen on the phone with Mia one time, talking about getting an AirBnB for a “staycation” with Amy but says he wishes he was going with Mia instead. They are seen interacting one last time in his car as he ends things.

Around the same time that this emotional affair is happening, Amy has an emotional and physical affair with Paul Cho, who is implied to be much younger than her. For reasons that I can’t explain because they’re very nonsensical but it makes sense in the show, Amy starts cat fishing Paul with Mia’s pictures. She goes by the name “Kayla.” After George accidentally sends her the screenshot of Mia topless, Amy and Paul’s relationship escalates from DMs to calling. It is clear that Amy is hurt by George’s actions and likes the validation and emotional connection she gets from Paul that she’s been lacking in her marriage, even though she’s cat fishing him (he tells her that she’s hot, has a sexy voice, that her boss sucks, etc.). Paul tells her that, although they’ve only been DMing for a few days, it feels like “I’ve been DMing you my whole life.” Amy looks like she is going to say something back, but she gets interrupted and suddenly realizes how crazy her actions have been. She blocks Paul. Paul then goes to her workplace to find “Kayla,” leading Amy to admit that she has been cat fishing him with Mia’s photos and apologizes for the disappointment. She subtly expresses her insecurities, saying she knows she doesn’t have “perky boobs” and a “taut ass” like Mia, but Paul says that she’s actually more attractive than “Kayla” and kisses her. They proceed to have a very inappropriate relationship— they kiss one more time, he stays over in her hotel room and they smoke weed together, she sends him a photo of her ass, and just generally skirt the boundary of an emotional affair and a full-on physical affair, even though Amy insists that they can not be physical. Finally, Paul and Amy have sex. This is around the same time as George’s call with Mia, saying that he wishes they were going to the staycation together instead of with his wife. After having sex, they get into an argument and end things.

A year after these events, George admits his affair with Mia to Amy and promises that it was only an “emotional entanglement.” Instead of also admitting her own affair, Amy uses this as an opportunity to basically guilt-trip him into doing what she wants (moving away from the site of her affair and other misdeeds that I didn’t get into). Amy says that she promises she will never bring George’s affair up again and that she just wants to leave everything in the past. George agrees, but once he learns about the physical affair she had with Paul, he asks for a divorce.

Speculation of the highest degree:

The sexual relationship between George and Amy’s characters is described as “bland.” Amy has to masturbate with a gun to spice up her sex life by herself. The one time we see them having sex, George gets soft while inside her and has to stop (this might be because of guilt, as this is when he admits his affair to her). They were both clearly dissatisfied with their relationship emotionally and physically and had affairs to try to rectify these issues. George masturbated to a picture of Amy’s employee and had an emotional affair with her, while Amy developed a connection with a younger, more validating man and had rough sex with him that she very clearly enjoyed.