There’s something kismet about one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors linking up with its most eligible bachelorettes in the humdrum of the entertainment industry by throwing caution to the wind for a shot at love.
The Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings actor Simu Liu has been a hot-button topic ever since his MCU film broke box office records in 2021. From time to time his name has appeared beside a Hollywood starlet or two, but nothing really stuck until Jade Bender came around.
The two made their red carpet debut at the 2022 ESPY Awards, but not long after Liu admitted he was prioritizing his mental health amid a “breakup,” subsequently shattering hopes of a happily ever after. Almost everyone knows who Liu is at this point because of his status as a Marvel star and the Ken to rival all Kens in Barbie. But what about Jade? We want to know more about her.
Who is Jade Bender?
Jade Bender is a 26-year-old actress best known for her role in the 2022 Netflix movie Senior Year starring Rebel Wilson. In the movie Bender plays “bratty, holier-than-thou influencer” Bri Loves, the daughter of Tiffany (Zoe Chao) who put Wilson’s character Stephanie in a coma.
Senior Year marked Bender’s first big movie debut, and it has since sparked a growling list of high-profile projects. In 2023, Bender appeared in an episode of Never Have I Ever season 4 as the perfect Princeton student Blair Quan. That same year she appeared in three episodes of the Black-ish spin-off, Grown-ish as the character Sofia.
Bender lives a relatively active life on social media, but not nearly as much as other actresses in Hollywood. She sports an impressive following of 67,000 on Instagram, but doesn’t own a public TikTok or Twitter/X account, as of this writing.
Bender is a fresh face in the industry so there isn’t much information on her, and while dating a celebrity as big as Liu doesn’t necessarily mean movie and TV offers will fall in her lap, it does point to the possibility that we could be seeing more of the young actress in the near future, especially with her lineup of recent movie and TV shows.
How long did Jade Bender and Simu Liu date?
Bender and Liu’s love was short-lived. The couple was first spotted together in 2019 at the Unforgettable Gala, but it wasn’t until June 2022 that their friendship blossomed into a romance. They were spotted at the restaurant Catch in West Hollywood, California just weeks before Liu’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in promotion of his New York Times bestselling book We Were Dreamers.
By July 2022 the pair made their relationship red carpet official at the 2022 ESPY Awards and again a few days later at Entertainment Weekly‘s 2023 Comic-Con bash.
A few days after that, they went full-blown Instagram official in a now-deleted series of Instagram posts to Bender’s account. For the next month, they enjoyed a series of public outings and red-carpet premiers, including the premiere of Bullet Train.
Sadly, by Sept. 2022, Liu revealed during an interview at a tech conference hosted by Salesforce (I know, not the place you’d expect someone to bear their heart) that he was going through a breakup, effectively confirming that his and Bender’s relationship of two months had come to an end, per SFGate.com.
“I’m OK, I’m OK. I’m learning to prioritize myself, I’m becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of therapy and support systems. … It really just hit me recently just how burnt out I was. I experienced moments where I’m living my dream and it didn’t quite feel like I was where I needed to be with myself.
“I’m also going through a breakup. That’s probably also contributing to it but that’s OK, I’ll be OK.”
What started out as a hopeful shot at love ended before it ever really began. Liu and Bender have since carried on with their lives, each pursuing their own creative projects. Perhaps one day they will reconnect, either on or off-screen, but either way, we remain hopelessly optimistic that they will find love when they’re ready.