Mindy Kaling Responds To Rumor That B.J. Novak Is The Father Of Her 2 Children

Mindy Kaling is finally addressing a persistent rumor about her relationship with her “Office” co-star and former boyfriend, B.J. Novak.

In an interview with Marie Claire published Tuesday, the “Never Have I Ever” creator shrugged off speculation that Novak is secretly the father of her two children, Katherine, 4, and Spencer 1.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Kaling told the publication. “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.”

Kaling has never publicly addressed the paternity of her children. In her Marie Claire chat, she said she does not plan on sharing her journey to parenthood until Katherine and Spencer are “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,” she continued. “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.”

Kaling and Novak met while filming the premiere season of “The Office” in 2004. The pair dated on and off until 2007, according to People, but have remained close friends and continue to support each other’s professional endeavors. In March, they appeared together on the red carpet for Vanity Fair’s 2022 Oscars afterparty.

“No one, including us, ever really knew, ‘Is this dating? Is this not dating?’ We were never really dating, we were never really not dating,” Novak recalled in a 2012 Vulture interview. “We didn’t know. No one knew. All you’d know for sure as that you’d always find one of us next to the other, even if we weren’t getting along.”

Kaling echoed those sentiments, quipping to InStyle in 2015, “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.”

As to her choice of Novak as the godfather to Katherine and Spencer, she told “Good Morning America” in 2020, “Godparents are a Christian tradition, and I’m Hindu, and he’s Jewish. It makes no sense, really, but we really think we were like: ‘Christians really got this right; this is a great tradition.’ I was like, ‘I’m not missing out on this.’”

“We’re just redefining what it really means,” she added. “Right now, it just means that he’s in our pandemic pod, so he comes over all the time — he wrote a bestselling children’s book, so he’s great with kids, and so it’s been really nice to have his energy in the house.”