We all fell in love with B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling on the hit NBC mockumentary series, The Office. Their characters, Kelly and Ryan, were two of the more unique characters on the show. And their bizarre romance definitely provided more than a few laughs.
But did you know they also dated in real life? They dated off-and-on between 2004 and 2007 before ultimately calling it quits. Since then, they have remained best friends. They’ll even sometimes keep each other company at red carpet events as platonic dates.
Back in 2014, Novak said their relationship was complicated.
Complicated. A really complicated person and a really complicated friendship, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
They’ve been so close throughout the years that when Mindy had her first child in 2017, people just assumed Novak was the father. But Mindy has never said who the father of her daughter is, although, presumably it’s not Novak because he was given the title of godfather.
Back in 2020, Mindy talked about the decision to name Novak a godparent.
Godparents are a Christian tradition, and I’m Hindu and he’s Jewish. It makes no sense really, but we really think like, ‘Christians really got this right, this is a great tradition,’ I was like, ‘I’m not missing out on this,’ so he is the godparent to my daughter and we’re just redefining what it really means. Right now, it just means that he’s in our pandemic pod, so he comes over all the time — he’s great with kids, so it’s been really nice to have him in the house.
Shortly after that interview, Mindy gave birth to her second child, a little baby boy named Spencer. And once again, people assumed Novak was the father.
During a recent interview with Marie Claire, Mindy talked about how the rumors don’t really bother her.
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 BJ. If that’s what is going to be titillating to people, I’ll take it.
So who is the father of her children? No one knows. Mindy has always been very protective of her home life. During her first pregnancy, she didn’t go out of the house and managed to make it through her entire pregnancy without the paparazzi getting a shot of her baby bump.
Safe to say, we may never know who the father is.
