The Tragic Truth About John Mulaney

The following article incudes references to substance use.

From the outside looking in, comedian John Mulaney has it all: a beautiful family and a successful and lucrative career. “I’ve always been so famous in my own head that I don’t think my younger self would have been fazed at all. I just kinda was always a famous comedian in my head,” Mulaney told Rolling Stone about his meteoric rise to fame. Still, his life has not been exempt from personal tragedy — some of which he admits was of his own making. 

“I have, for some reason, set up various obstacles, in my own way, that have left me sometimes pretty rawed up, pretty disoriented, and pretty unhappy, but I am at my core a happy person,” Mulaney confessed during an episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Indeed, the celebrity stand-up comedian’s life has been consumed by one tragic event after another.

John Mulaney has never shied away from his struggles with substance use. “I don’t drink. I used to drink, and then I drank too much, and I had to stop,” he declared during his 2012 special “New in Town.” He added, “I quit drinking ’cause I used to drink too much, and then I would black out, and I would ruin parties.” 

In 2014, Mulaney revealed that he had been sober since 2005. During the annual Comedy Actor Emmy Roundtable discussion for The Hollywood Reporter, which also included fellow comedians Steven Yeun, Jason Segel, Tyler James Williams, and Mo Amer, Mulaney revealed that his initial version of the pitch for his 2014 sitcom “Mulaney” was actually titled “Mulaney Don’t Drink.” According to Mulaney, the premise of the show was all about his journey getting sober. “It was based on the time in my life when I got sober at 23 and had two roommates and was just trying to figure out: What does a good person do?” he explained. 

During a candid 2019 interview with Esquire, Mulaney confessed that he first started drinking at only 13 years old. “I drank for attention,” he said. “I was really outgoing, and then at twelve, I wasn’t. I didn’t know how to act. And then I was drinking, and I was hilarious again.” Eventually, he made the jump to drugs. “I never liked smoking pot. Then I tried cocaine, and I loved it.” However, by 2005, Mulaney had finally had enough after a particularly harrowing weekend of drinking and using drugs. “I thought to myself, ‘I don’t like this guy anymore. I’m not rooting for him,'” he recalled.

Sadly, John Mulaney suffered not one but two relapses in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2020, Page Six reported that Mulaney had checked into a rehabilitation facility in Pennsylvania for both alcohol and cocaine use. A source told the gossip column, “John’s friends and family are happy that he’s finally getting some help and focusing on his health.”

Mulaney eventually spoke candidly about his second relapse and subsequent intervention by family and friends during his Netflix special, “Baby J.” True to form, however, the professional comedian was able to take the serious subject matter and make it into a laughing matter. “Let me just call this out now. I don’t mean to be weird. It was a star-studded intervention. It was, like, a good group. It was a good group. As mad as I was when I walked in there, I was like ‘This is a good lineup. This is really flattering in its own way,” he joked (via Men’s Health) about his intervention roster of actors and comedians, which included Seth Meyers, Nick Kroll, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Natasha Lyonne.

Unfortunately, in between John Mulaney’s two harrowing relapses, he also called it quits on his first marriage to Anna Marie Tendler. “I packed a lot into this year,” Mulaney revealed during an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in September 2021. Mulaney went on to rattle off how he went to rehab in September 2020, got out in October 2020, moved out of his shared home with his ex-wife, hosted “Saturday Night Live” on Halloween, relapsed again, and eventually went to rehab again at the behest of many of his family and friends, including Seth Meyers. Busy, busy!

Page Six first reported the news of his split from Tendler in May 2021. “John will not have any further comment as he continues to focus on his recovery and getting back to work,” a rep for Mulaney told the publication when pressed for comment. Tendler, however, was rather open, even telling Page Six that she was “heartbroken that John has decided to end our marriage.” She went on to publish a memoir in August 2024 titled “Men Have Called Her Crazy.” While she did not drop Mulaney’s name directly, it still appears to be a thinly veiled ode to the demise of their six-year marriage and the way in which it affected her. Tendler noted in an Instagram post that the book was not only about “being a woman” but also the “endless source of my heartbreak and rage — men.”

John Mulaney found love again rather quickly with actor Olivia Munn. Alas, Mulaney and Munn’s relationship was not without controversy. The story goes that the pair first met way back in 2013 while attending Seth Meyers’ wedding. Mulaney was engaged to his first wife, Anna Marie Tendler, at the time. It wasn’t until May 2021, however, that rumors of a romance between the two celebrities started swirling. A source told People that the couple was freshly dating and “taking it slowly.” Ironically, by September 2021, Mulaney and Munn had baby news. “We’re having a baby together,” Mulaney declared during an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” 

Sadly, in March 2024, Munn revealed on Instagram that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She explained that she was first diagnosed in April 2023 and had undergone four surgeries since the diagnosis, including a double mastectomy. “I have this feeling a lot of times, I go, ‘I can’t believe I know this person, let alone am married to her,” Mulaney gushed to correspondent Tracy Smith on “CBS Sunday Morning” about the way in which Munn handled the diagnosis and subsequent treatments all while being a mother, a wife, and raising awareness about a vital cancer risk assessment tool that she credits for catching her breast cancer sooner. The couple got married in July 2024 and welcomed their second child, daughter Méi June Mulaney, in September 2024 via surrogacy.