Aubrey Plaza‘s dry, sardonic onscreen persona might not be exactly consonant with the stereotypical image of a stadium-dwelling sports fan. But the My Old Ass star showed a whole new side of herself at the New York Liberty vs. Minnesota Lynx WNBA finals at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Sunday night, cheering on the Liberty (a likely team for a bisexual woman to support!) as they beat the Lynx 67 to 62, winning their first WNBA title in the process:
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If there’s one thing I love in this world, it’s genuine enthusiasm about women’s sports (even though I, myself, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world of college basketball by Caitlin Clark not all that long ago). And if I didn’t already have a low-grade crush on Plaza, seeing her scream for the Liberty and flip off the crowd on the Jumbotron would most definitely have done the trick. Who would have ever thought that the dark, twisted, genius mind behind dour, sardonic April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation would turn into the queer woman’s answer to Jack Nicholson sitting courtside at seemingly every Lakers game?
The Liberty has become an increasingly huge sensation over the last season, with mascot Ellie the Elephant emerging as one of the best-dressed sports girlies of all time. (She carries a Telfar, guys! She’s chic and she supports New York designers!) So it’s not necessarily a shock to see a celebrity of Plaza’s stature sitting courtside. What is surprising and a little infectious, though, is the obvious delight that Plaza—who writer Suzy Exposito placed the actress alongside Jenna Ortega in the canon of “moody, deadpan Latinas” in a 2023 LA Times story—took in watching the game. Winning the championship is all well and good, but getting Aubrey Plaza to go full fangirl mode might be the Liberty’s greatest accomplishment of all.
