Mindy Kaling prefers to keep her personal life out of the public eye, but she gave a glimpse into her view on relationships during a Monday, October 2, appearance on Today. “I’m still a romantic at heart, and I write these stories about people finding love when they least expect it,” the Office alum, 44, explained. “So, of course, I’m open to that, and I believe in magic and timing.”
Mindy then recalled how it was “when [she] was younger” and felt “so far away from anything close to attention from boys.” So, the Dartmouth College graduate would “just imagine” what it felt like to fall in love. “I had this over-active imagination ‘cause, even then, I was, like, a writer and a creative, so I used to love these stories about people falling in love and going to movies, and seeing Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in romantic comedies and all that,” Megan gushed.
The Sex Lives of College Girls co-creator got her start in show business as a writer, an actress and eventually a producer on multiple projects, including The Office and The Mindy Project. Mindy’s father lost her mother to pancreatic cancer in 2012, but he later found love again, which gave the Massachusetts native hope.
“He’s an Indian man, and he was in his 60s and he moved to L.A. without knowing anyone, and then they met in the same apartment building,” Mindy revealed about her dad and his new partner. “And they are such an amazing couple. People find love in unexpected places. So, I don’t know about it for me personally right now, but I’m always open to it.”
Mindy has two children: daughter Katherine “Kit” Swati and son Spencer Avu. However, she has not publicly revealed who their father is. The only high-profile romance in Mindy’s life was with her Office co-star B.J. Novak. The former couple dated on and off until 2007. Despite breaking up, they remained friends — so much so that B.J., 44, is also reportedly Mindy’s children’s godfather.
In February, B.J. joked about his and Mindy’s past “tumultuous, romantic, toxic, boundary-less mess” of a relationship when he presented her with the Norman Lear Achievement Award at the 2023 Producers Guild Awards.
“We were in love with each other, and we were reckless idiots, and the two of us would argue about all of these things forever — grinding the writers’ room into a halt until we got too upset, and we’d go to our respective offices and slam the door where we would continue arguing over AOL and Instant Messenger,” the Saving Mr. Banks actor said before adding, “It was 2005. … Nearly 200 episodes of The Office together, 24 of them written by Mindy, far more than any other writer on the staff, and our conversation never stopped.”