‘He really is in our family, he’s such a huge part of our life’

Mindy Kaling is the cover interview for Bustle, all to promote her latest series, Not Suitable for Work. She’s currently show-running for this new Hulu show and Running Point on Netflix. NSFW premieres on June 2, and it follows a friend-group in their early 20s as they navigate careers, friendships and love. Within this Bustle piece, there are multiple references to BJ Novak, Mindy’s “best friend” and “godfather” to her three children. One of the first references comes during the Bustle writer’s description of Mindy’s office, full of her personal artifacts including “her old Dartmouth mailbox, gifted to her by her alma mater; the words ‘Never Complain, Never Explain’ embroidered on mustard fabric in a bedazzled frame (a gift from her close friend and ex B.J. Novak). There are also framed photos of her children — Katherine aka Kit is 8, Spencer is 5, and Anne is 2 — and a framed selfie of Kaling and Novak.” While neither Novak nor Kaling will say it out loud, I hope there are no doubts about what they’re doing. Some highlights from Mindy’s interview:

Her big plan was to become a comedy writer, get married at 24, have her first baby at 27, complete her family by 32. A teenage Kaling had laid out her personal timeline with such conviction that when she actually landed a job writing on The Office at 24 and moved to LA, it seemed only natural that the other pieces would fall into place. Instead, “literally none of that happened,” Kaling, 46, says. “All I wanted was a serious boyfriend and to follow this path that I’d set out for myself. I remember feeling like an overachiever at work and just wishing that my personal life matched my professional success — and it didn’t.”

Focusing on characters in their early 20s for NSFW: “Those time periods are just so juicy. When I was younger, I didn’t have the same compassion for 20-year-olds that I do now. I was like, They’re all my competitors. I have so much love and compassion — for both the younger version of myself and all of these characters.” Her own early 20s were full of 18-hour days spent “scraping by,” she says. “All I wanted to do was have health insurance, make money, and write on a hit show because I was so insecure and panicked about my career.”

She didn’t become community-minded until her 30s: “I didn’t come into this career in 2004 as a scared 24-year-old thinking in a community-minded way. That has completely changed in the past 20 years.”

Working with so many Indian-American actresses: “I love seeing young women, particularly young Indian American women, and how different they are than I was at the same age, how confident they are, how unafraid they are to be activists, speak their mind, do their craft.”

Her weight loss in recent years: Kaling has said she focuses on food moderation, running, hiking, and strength training. One of Kaling’s charms has always been her vocal enthusiasm for celebrity culture writ large, and she gets why some fans may feel frustrated. “It’s sometimes no fun when one of your favorite actors loses weight. You have an idea of what they were like when you grew attached to them, and it made them endear themselves to you. Of course, it’s never a joy to be scrutinized, but also I truly understand it, as someone who consumes pop culture.”

Why she lost weight: Her decision to lose weight, she says, was motivated by concerns around her health and the realization that she needs to “live at least 20 more years” for her children. “Do I wake up every day being like, ‘I look amazing and I’m so gorgeous’? No, unsurprisingly, but I truly feel so healthy,” she continues, adding that she may write about her weight-loss journey in the future. For now, she holds the boundary at talking about her motivation. “When I was younger, I would want to lose weight because of vanity reasons. Now I want to lose weight or have lost weight because I want to stave off things like diabetes. I had it on both sides of my family, and trying to avoid those kinds of things will, I think, help longevity for me, and that’s my goal.”

On BJ Novak: He’s the godfather of her three children, and the pair continue to refer to each other as “soup snakes” (an Office reference about soulmates). “He really is in our family, and I love talking about him because my kids adore him, and he’s such a huge part of our life. But I also know that it gives people a lot of ideas. If I was just watching it from the outside, I would have the same questions and the same reactions.”

She’s not dating anyone & not looking: She’s not “actively searching for that person,” she says now. “I obviously have eyes and ears, and if there was someone that I had a crush on, of course I would react to that, but right now, there is not anyone out there. It is crazy for someone like me, who only wrote about the pursuit of romance for so much of my life, to be very happy and content without a partner.”

She was never a ‘kid person’ before she became a mom: “It’s one of the biggest mysteries in my life, this fervent knowledge that I knew I had to have kids that was not based on any real love of children. B.J., for instance, he’s always been a kid person. He has a brother who’s 13 years younger than him, and he loved his little brother and just always has been a kid person. It’s such a deep mystery why I needed to do it.”

[From Bustle]

I’m fine with her not talking specifics about her weight loss, because I think for-sure she’s on a GLP-1, but I also don’t doubt that she had legitimate health reasons for going on it. Like, I buy that it’s not a vanity thing, and she literally had three children in quick succession in her late 30s and early 40s. I’m sure all of that did a number on her body and her health. I’m less fine with all of these stupid games about BJ Novak. This piece is the clearest indication yet that the theory about her children’s paternity is absolutely correct, and all of the assumptions about BJ and Mindy’s relationship are sadly correct too. And it’s just so…uncomfortable. I have a few other words for it too, but I’ll save my breath.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.