Reich returned to Moscow when their daughter, Tatiana, was one year old, but she and Yesenin quarreled. In February 1920 Reich gave birth to their son Konstantin, but the couple continued to live separately. At that time Reich lived in a shelter for mothers with infants. On 5 October 1921 Zinaida Reich and Sergey Yesenin were officially divorced. The story of the couple is known from the memoir "Novel without Lies" (1926) (Роман без вранья) written by Yesenin's close friend, room-mate and allegedly homosexual lover Anatoly Marienhof. Marienhof described Reich as a "crummy Jewish dame with fleshy lips on a face round as a dinner-plate". He wrote that Yesenin allegedly was upset when he saw his black-haired son, Konstantin. "No Yesenin had ever been black-haired", he allegedly said. Reich had dark hair, which is genetically dominant over light hair. Historians have doubted that Marienhof's description of Reich is accurate. She was of German-Russian ancestry and Russian Orthodox by faith. Reich studied at the "State Experimental Theatre Workshops," headed by famous theatrical director Vsevolod Meyerhold. Meyerhold was 20 years older than she; at the time he had been married for 25 years to his wife Olga and had three daughters with her. He ended up getting a divorce, and Reich and Meyerhold married in 1922. Yesenin and Reich had a relationship after her second marriage. The poet often broke into the house of Meyerholds demanding to see his former wife and children. Reich and Yesenin met secretly in her friend's apartment. Yesenin committed suicide on 23 December 1925. Reich worked as an actress and was featured as a star of the Meyerhold Theatre from 1923 until her death in 1939. According to the theatre critic N. Volkov:The works of Vsevolod Meyerhold of the 1920s and 1930s cannot be understood without Zinaida Reich ... In all his productions, Meyerhold was building 'mise en scenes' to feature Zinaida Reich ... If he was afraid that Zinaida would not manage her part, he would create beneficial 'mise en scenes' for her... Together with Meyerhold, Reich traveled his creative path: from experiments in biomechanics to deeper psychologism".). Meyerhold took the family name Meyerhold-Reich as a sign of their partnership.