Yaya DaCosta Husband Story: Joshua Bee Alafia, Rumors, and Reality

If you’ve ever typed “Yaya Dacosta husband” into Google and come away more confused than informed, you’re not alone. The internet can’t seem to agree on whether she was married, to whom, and what their relationship actually was. The truth is a little more layered than those quick “ex-husband” headlines suggest.

Why Everyone Keeps Googling “Yaya DaCosta Husband”

Yaya DaCosta has been in the spotlight for years, so curiosity about her love life is almost inevitable. She first caught public attention as the runner-up on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model, then moved into acting and steadily built a solid, respected career.

You’ve probably seen her in movies like Take the Lead and The Kids Are All Right, or in TV roles like her powerful turn as Whitney Houston in Whitney, nurse April Sexton on Chicago Med, and more recently in Our Kind of People and The Lincoln Lawyer. She’s also a trained birth worker and doula, using her platform to talk about Black maternal health and reproductive justice.

Add to that the fact that she’s a devoted mom to a young son, and people naturally assume there was (or is) a husband in the picture. That’s where the confusion begins.

Is Yaya DaCosta Married Now?

Let’s start with the simple part: as far as reliable, recent information goes, Yaya DaCosta is not currently married.

Most up-to-date bios list her as single and mention only one significant past relationship in the public eye: her long-term partnership with independent filmmaker Joshua Bee Alafia, with whom she has a son. There’s no record of a current spouse, no wedding announcement, and no credible reporting tying her to a new husband.

So if you’re searching “yaya dacosta husband” wondering about her current status, the straightforward answer is that there doesn’t appear to be a husband in the picture right now.

The Name Everyone Mentions: Joshua Bee Alafia

The person at the center of all the “husband” talk is Joshua Bee Alafia. He’s an independent filmmaker, cinematographer, and meditation teacher whose work leans toward spiritual and socially conscious themes.

For years, entertainment sites described Joshua as Yaya’s husband. Many reported that the two were married in June 2012, sometimes even citing a specific date, and said they separated a couple of years later. They also noted that they have a son together, named Sankara, born in 2013. That version of events—short marriage, one child, then divorce—was repeated so often it began to feel like an established fact.

You still see that language all over the internet today: “ex-husband,” “former husband,” “their two-year marriage,” and so on. It’s easy to see why casual readers assume the story is simple: they got married, had a child, then divorced.

Except Yaya herself says that’s not what happened.

Yaya’s Own Words: “I Never Got Divorced Because I Was Never Married”

In a 2016 interview, Yaya decided to address the rumors directly. She pointed out that she almost never talks about her personal life publicly, which leaves a lot of room for people to fill in blanks however they want. Then she said something that immediately challenged all those headlines:

“I never got divorced because I was never married, first of all.”

It’s a short sentence, but it flips the entire narrative. According to her, there was no legal marriage and therefore no divorce—just a relationship that began, produced a child she adores, and eventually ended.

So how did all the “husband” talk start? There are a few possibilities:

• They might have had a private ceremony or commitment that people around them—and later, reporters—interpreted as a wedding, even if it wasn’t legally registered.

• Some outlets may have simply assumed “husband” because they were long-term partners with a child and never bothered to check.

• Early misinformation gets copied: once one article used the word “married,” others repeated it, and it snowballed into “fact.”

Whatever the exact path, it’s clear that Yaya herself does not consider Joshua her ex-husband. She describes him as an ex and the father of her child, but not as someone she was legally married to.

What We Know About Their Relationship

Labels aside, Yaya and Joshua did share a real and meaningful relationship for several years.

Their partnership seems to have begun around 2012. In 2013, Yaya gave birth to their son, Sankara. She’s spoken lovingly about his birth, which was at home and deeply influenced her later decision to train as a doula and advocate for safer, more empowering birth experiences—especially for Black women.

By 2014–2015, various outlets were reporting that the couple had split. How exactly the separation unfolded is something neither of them has dissected in public, which is their right. What’s visible from the outside is that their romantic relationship ended, they moved on separately, and they both remained in their son’s life.

Joshua still posts about his time with Sankara—trips, nature, everyday moments. Yaya, meanwhile, talks about her son in interviews as her grounding force and biggest source of joy, but she rarely ties that back to the details of her former relationship.

Motherhood and Co-Parenting Sankara

If there’s one consistent theme in how Yaya talks about her personal life, it’s motherhood. Sankara, born in 2013, comes up often in her conversations about purpose and priorities.

She’s mentioned how becoming a mother shifted the way she chooses roles, the kinds of stories she wants to tell, and the way she thinks about representation on screen. Her activism around birth justice and Black maternal health is clearly connected to her own experience giving birth and raising a Black son in a world that doesn’t always protect Black children.

While she doesn’t narrate the logistics of co-parenting in detail, it’s clear that both she and Joshua are involved in their son’s life. Their social media and public comments suggest a functioning co-parenting relationship—no drama-heavy play-by-play, just two people raising a child they both love.

From Reality TV Contestant to Working Actor and Birth Worker

Another reason the “yaya dacosta husband” rumor lingers is because Yaya herself doesn’t feed it. She doesn’t invite the spotlight onto her romantic life. Instead, when she has a microphone, she tends to talk about other things.

She talks about clawing her way out of the “reality TV” box after America’s Next Top Model, proving to directors and casting agents that she was more than a pretty face from a competition show. She talks about the craft of acting, about choosing roles that feel meaningful, and about producing and creating more of her own work.

And increasingly, she talks about birth work—supporting parents, advocating for safer, culturally competent care, and helping shift the narrative around home birth and Black maternal health. In that world, she’s not “the actress with the ex-husband”; she’s the mother, the doula, the advocate.

Romance just isn’t at the center of how she defines herself publicly.