Mindy Kaling isn’t letting paternity speculation get under her skin. The actress is addressing some long-running rumors about the identity of the father of her children.
Kaling, 43, recently spoke with Marie Claire and addressed speculation that her ex-boyfriend and longtime best friend BJ Novak is the father of her two children.
“It doesn’t bother me,” said Kaling—who is mom to 4-year-old daughter Katherine and 1-year-old son Spencer. “He’s the godparent to both of my kids – and they have such a great relationship.”
Kaling said the rumors so far “hasn’t affected my happiness at all, it hasn’t affected my kids or BJ.”
“If this is what’s going to bother people, I’ll take it,” she said.
The former office mates and friendly ancestors have lasted for many years, and have always maintained a loving friendship and close bond since their split.
However, Kaling took her family’s privacy very seriously and told Marie Claire that she doesn’t plan on sharing photos of her children — or at least their faces — on social media, and she’s not conceiving of them until then. Won’t talk about it until they’re old enough to learn the story themselves.
“I want them to be old enough to talk to me about it and [tell me] how they want me to talk about it,” she said. “I’m the only parent of my kids… I guess I err on the side of being super cautious so that there are fewer things that could potentially be mad at me down the line.”
Kaling spoke with Good Housekeeping in May 2019, and addressed Novak in her decision to be the godparent for her daughter, sharing, “The truth is that BJ is a lot more like family than a platonic friend now. ”
“He comes in like once a week. Sometimes he comes just to hang out with her,” she said.
While admitting that her and Novak’s relationship may seem a bit awkward from other people’s perspectives, she says, “If I was looking at it from the outside, I would have thought the same thing.” However, he insisted that Novak “is a real staple in my house.”
“When you’ve known someone for as long as I’ve known him — the time we met each other, which was like 24. Now, we’re both almost 40. That’s such a long time that he really Just a part of my family,” shared Kalinga.