Zooey Deschanel Says She Has a Group Chat with Ex Jacob Pechenik and Fiance Jonathan Scott

Zooey Deschanel is pulling back the curtain on her fiance Jonathan Scott’s relationship with her ex-husband Jacob Pechenik.

During her Dec. 17 appearance on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast, the Merv star, 45, opened up about her post-divorce relationship with Pechenik and how he gets along with Scott. While Deschanel was married to Pechenik from 2015 to 2019, the two are still in each other’s lives as they co-parent their two kids together: Elsie Otter, 10 and Charlie Wolf, 8.

When Cooper asks Deschanel about the misconceptions people have about divorce — especially with feeling like you have to “hate” an ex after a breakup — Deschanel says candidly, “I don’t hate anyone that I was with before.”

She continues, “And you know, it’s awesome because my kids’ dad is a great dad, and I always wanna support him as a parent. We have a group chat — Jonathan and Jacob and I — and my kids thrive when they know that we all care for each other.”

The actress explains how all three of them are able to spend time together without there being any issues, and how it’s important to do that for their kids. 

“We socialize and we’ve been on vacations together, and you know, we’ve been through a lot,” she adds.

Deschanel then gets into her biggest piece of advice for making a smooth co-parenting relationship work like hers does.

“I talk to people about this all the time because there are people like, it’s really hard for them to let go of feeling mad. You have to let go of any anger you’d feel. And I know that sounds difficult, but it’s actually pretty easy when you just go, ‘Look, the most important thing is that the kids are happy, and that they’re thriving.’”

She also notes that having “respect” for her ex and “his opinion and his point of view” is especially important, particularly when it comes to differences in parenting.  

“I think it goes both ways,” she adds. “So then he’ll respect me, and I respect him, and then the respect just keeps generating and building, you know?”

While reflecting on her kids meeting her and Pechenik’s new partners for the first time, she admits, “I think that’s the one really big unknown when you get divorced.”

She continues, “There’s a little bit of a boundary there. The kids, they get attached to whoever you’re with. And if they’re meeting the kids and they’re around the kids, then they are gonna get attached. And it’s like, you don’t want anyone to take that lightly.”

Deschanel recalls how she and Pechenik both agreed to meet each other’s partners before introducing them to their kids.

“I wouldn’t want them to get attached to somebody unless I knew they were gonna be in their lives, you know? So it kind of set up a little bit of a protocol so that we took it seriously before we’d introduce a partner to the kids.”

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Deschanel and Scott first started dating in 2019 after they met on the set of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. After four years of dating, the HGTV star popped the question while the couple were on a family vacation in Scotland in August 2023. 

The Property Brothers star, who was also previously married, made sure to include Deschanel’s children in the magical proposal he planned at Edinburgh Castle. 

In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Deschanel explained why she and Scott are still in the “exploratory” phase of wedding planning more than two years after getting engaged. 

“We’re not in a rush because we’ve been together so long, so it’s not like we’re like, ‘We gotta get married.’ I’d rather find the right place, the right place and situation, so that it’s really special and fun,” she told PEOPLE.

At the Dec. 4 premiere of her new movie Merv, she added, “The bar is high for throwing a party. So it has to be really good. So that’s why it’s taking a long time.”