Mindy Kaling is a proud, single mother of three – but who is the kids’ father?
It’s one of the biggest, modern day Hollywood mysteries, in a time when it really shouldn’t be.
But the particular interest in Mindy’s children comes from her long-standing, on-again, off-again romance with Office co-star B.J. Novack.
Fans of the show just can’t seem to let go of the notion that he may be the father of her children.
But what evidence do they have? Let’s dive in.
BJ Novak and Mindy Kaling attend the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 4, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
Mindy Kaling’s Kids & Their Father: Is It B.J. Novak?
When Mindy Kaling welcomed her first daughter back in December 2017, she refused to disclose the identity of the child’s father.
It should come as no surprise then that fans jumped to the conclusion that B.J. Novak was the baby daddy.
In fact, many were flat-out convinced that the Scranton branch’s third or fourth most popular couple entered the parenting world together.
B.J. and Mindy starred as coworkers and lovers Ryan Howard and Kelly Kapoor, respectively, on The Office from 2005 to 2013.
Love imitated art for several years, as the pair dated while the show was on the air. By 2007, they officially called it quits.
Unofficially, the pair have remained incredibly close, leading to speculation from fans about whether the two are more than friends.
It didn’t help matters that just a few weeks after Mindy gave birth to her first child, the pair showed up together at the 2018 Oscars for a date night.
But still, Mindy stayed mum about the dad of her daughter.
Mindy Kaling attends the 95th Annual Academy Awards on March 12, 2023 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images )
Mindy’s Growing Family
Time passed, people moved on (sort of), until the birth of her son in 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic! The pregnancy was a secret, of course, aided by the fact that the world was locked away in their homes.
And again, Mindy deflected questions on who the father of both of her children was. Fans started pulling at threads, dissecting everything Mindy’s said about their relationship in interviews and her own writing.
“I will freely admit — my relationship with BJ Novak is weird as hell. He is not my boyfriend, but he is not my best friend,” Kaling revealed.
“I guess you could describe our relationship as a ‘romantically charged camaraderie with loud arguments,’ but I don’t think Facebook would accept this as a new status.”
In her 2015 memoir, Kaling left Office fans overjoyed when she revealed that she and Novak refer to one another as each other’s “soup snakes,” a reference to a season 7 episode in which Michael Scott intended to use the term “soul mates” and flubbed it as only he can.
“‘Soul mates’ is what you aim for, but soup snakes is what you get sometimes,” Kaling wrote.
B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling attend the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 12, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Mindy Welcomes Baby #3
The mystery of who is Mindy Kaling’s kids’ father was reignited in June 2024 when Mindy announced she had welcomed another daughter to her little family – four months earlier!
Yes, another secret pregnancy (she’s getting quite good at them!) and a renewed interest in who the father could be came around.
Again, no other name gets dropped quite as much as B.J. Novack, despite the fact that in 2022, Mindy finally addressed the rumors head on.
Speaking to Marie Claire, Mindy explained, “He’s the godparent to both my kids—and they have such a great relationship—and so far [the rumors haven’t] affected my happiness at all, it hasn’t affected my kids or B. J.”
“If that’s what is going to be titillating to people, I’ll take it,” she said, adding of protecting her kids’ privacy, “I want them to be old enough to talk to me about it and [tell me] how they want me to talk about it. I’m the only parent my kids have.…I think I err on the side of super cautious so that there’s less things that they can potentially be mad at me about down the line.”
And that, dear reader, seems to be the closest thing to an answer we’ll get in this lifetime.
Mindy Kaling: Is BJ Novak the Father of Her Kids?! was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.