Alejandra Amarilla: Everything to Know About Steve Nash’s Ex-Wife

Alejandra Amarilla is a Paraguayan born filmmaker, activist and producer. Many sports fans first heard her name because she was married to former NBA star Steve Nash. But her best known work has nothing to do with basketball. She is the founder and executive producer of Landfill Harmonic, the award winning documentary about young musicians in Paraguay who play instruments made from recycled trash.

Her life story crosses countries and careers. She grew up moving from place to place, studied marketing and advertising, met one of the best point guards of his time, raised three children with him, and then built a film project that brought global attention to a small community outside Asuncion. Here is what is publicly known about her.

Quick Facts

Early Life in Paraguay and a Childhood of Travel

Alejandra Amarilla was born in 1974 in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. Her exact birth date has not been confirmed in strong public sources, so most reports give only the year. Her father worked for the United Nations. Because of that job, the family traveled a lot and lived in different places while she was growing up.

That kind of childhood leaves a mark. Moving between cultures at a young age gives a person a wide view of the world, and it also shows how unequal life can be from one place to the next. In later interviews about her film work, Amarilla has spoken about wanting to help her home country and to draw attention to issues that affect children and women. That wish goes back to her roots in Paraguay, even though much of her adult life has been spent in the United States.

Reports about her education say she studied marketing and advertising, with some sources naming the Universidad Americana in Paraguay and a degree completed around 1999. The full detail of her studies is not confirmed in primary sources, so it is safer to say simply that her training was in marketing and advertising, a background that later helped her promote and build support for her film projects.

Before film became the center of her work, she also spent time in the United States, including work in New York. It was in Manhattan that her life took the turn that would make her name known to sports fans.

Meeting Steve Nash and Their Marriage

Amarilla met Steve Nash in Manhattan in 2001. At the time, Nash was playing for the Dallas Mavericks and was becoming one of the most exciting guards in the NBA. He later won the league’s Most Valuable Player award twice with the Phoenix Suns and is now remembered as one of the finest passers the game has seen.

The couple welcomed twin daughters, Lola and Bella, on October 14, 2004. They married on June 11, 2005. During the marriage, the family split its time around Nash’s career, living in Phoenix during the basketball season, where he played for the Suns, and spending time in New York in the off season.

From the outside, it looked like a settled celebrity sports family. Nash was at the peak of his career, and Amarilla appeared with him at public events from time to time. Still, both of them kept much of their private life away from the cameras. Very few long interviews from those years focus on Amarilla herself, which is one reason so much of what is written about her online is repeated from a small number of early reports.

Their third child, a son named Matteo Joel Nash, was born in November 2010. What should have been a simple happy announcement became big news for a different reason, and it changed how the public saw the marriage.

A Separation Announced at a Difficult Moment

On the day after Matteo was born in November 2010, Nash put out a public statement. He said he was thankful for his new son and that mother and baby were doing fine, but he called it a bittersweet moment. After five years of marriage, he said, the couple were in the process of ending their marriage. He also said they had already been living apart for several months, and that both of them were committed to raising their children in a positive and supportive way.

The timing of that statement is the reason the story is still talked about today. It raised many questions in the press and among fans. Neither Nash nor Amarilla gave a full public explanation of why the marriage ended, and the private reasons were never confirmed. Reports at the time carried a lot of speculation. Speculation is not proof, and this article does not treat any unproven rumor from that period as fact.

What is documented is what came next in the public record. The divorce moved through the courts, and in later years the former couple were in a custody and child support dispute that was reported in 2013. One report said the custody case was resolved in Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona on September 25, 2013. Nash later married former volleyball player Lilla Frederick in 2016, and they have two children.

For Amarilla, the end of the marriage was also the period when her film work became her main public identity. Rather than giving interviews about the split, she put her time into a project that had started a year earlier in Paraguay.

Landfill Harmonic and Her Film Work

Landfill Harmonic is the work that defines Amarilla’s career. The official film site credits her as founder, executive producer and the person behind the story concept. The film follows the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, a group of young people who live next to one of the largest landfills in South America, near Asuncion. Their instruments are built from items found in the trash, such as oil cans and drums, made by a local craftsman for children who could not afford normal instruments.

The project began in 2009, when Amarilla traveled to Paraguay with producer Juliana Penaranda-Loftus to research a film about underserved children. They were guided to the Cateura program, and Amarilla chose that story. Filming went on for several years, following the music teacher Favio Chavez, the instrument maker, and the young players as the orchestra began to perform outside Paraguay for the first time.

To finish the film, the team ran a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 that drew nearly 5,000 backers and raised more than 200,000 dollars in under two months. The film was featured on the CBS program 60 Minutes in November 2013, even before its full release. It went on to win audience awards at festivals including SXSW and AFI Fest, and it received a wider North American release in September 2016, with screenings starting in New York and Los Angeles.

Amarilla has said that being born in Asuncion made her dream of a chance to help her country and to raise awareness about children and women. The film did exactly that, in a way that a normal charity appeal could not. People around the world met the young musicians, heard them play, and learned about life in Cateura through music rather than through pity.

Her other film credit is Unleashing Creativity, a short film she co-directed for Free Arts of Arizona, about the healing power of creativity. Her wider activism, as described on the film site, includes support for programs in Uganda with Athletes for Africa in 2008 and backing for the Women’s Global Empowerment Fund. Together, these projects show a clear pattern. Her work has focused on children, women and communities with very little money or attention.

Life After the Divorce

Since the divorce, Amarilla has kept a low public profile. There are no confirmed reports of her remarrying, and she does not run a loud public life on social media. Most recent coverage of her still leads with her former marriage, even though her film was released years after the split and stands on its own.

Her three children with Nash are now much older. The twins were born in 2004 and Matteo in 2010. Both parents said at the time of the split that raising the children well was their shared priority, and neither parent has made the children a public storyline since then. Details about where Amarilla lives now and what new projects she may be planning have not been confirmed in strong sources, so they are not stated here as fact.

That quiet is worth noting in itself. Many people linked to a famous athlete stay in the spotlight. Amarilla did the opposite. She used the skills she had, in marketing, in film and in fundraising, to finish one well known documentary, and then stepped back from public attention.

FAQs

Who is Alejandra Amarilla?

She is a Paraguayan born filmmaker, activist and producer, best known as the founder and executive producer of the documentary Landfill Harmonic. She is also known as the former wife of NBA star Steve Nash.

When were Alejandra Amarilla and Steve Nash married?

They met in Manhattan in 2001, welcomed twin daughters in 2004, and married on June 11, 2005. Nash announced their separation in November 2010, just after the birth of their son Matteo.

How many children does Alejandra Amarilla have?

She has three children with Steve Nash. They are twin daughters Lola and Bella, born in 2004, and a son, Matteo Joel, born in 2010.

What is Landfill Harmonic about?

It is a documentary about the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura in Paraguay, where young musicians play instruments made from recycled trash. Amarilla founded and executive produced the film, which won audience awards and was featured on 60 Minutes.

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Final Thoughts

Alejandra Amarilla will probably always be introduced in headlines as Steve Nash’s ex-wife. That label is true, but it is not the whole story. She grew up between cultures, trained in marketing, and used those skills to bring one small Paraguayan orchestra to screens around the world.

Her public record is thinner than that of many celebrity former spouses, and she seems to prefer it that way. What can be said with confidence is simple. She is a mother of three, a filmmaker with one widely praised documentary to her name, and a person who turned her link to Paraguay into work that gave its young musicians a global stage.

Featured photo: Steve Nash – photo by Kevin Ward, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons