When actress Olivia Munn got pregnant, she admittedly “barely knew” her future child’s father, comedian John Mulaney. She knew he was committed to co-parenting and that he was a recovering addict recently out of rehab, but they lived on opposite sides of the country and spoke sparingly.
“It wasn’t anything close to ‘dating,’” Munn told GQ of the start of their relationship in 2021. “I barely knew him.” Then, she got pregnant, and Mulaney expressed his intent to be present in the child’s life. “It wasn’t necessarily ‘We’re going to be married and live together’ or any of that, but it was ‘I will be involved in some way.’”
In September 2020, Mulaney landed himself in rehab for addiction to pharmaceutical drugs and cocaine. He and his wife, Anna Marie Tendler, split soon after, and he relapsed three months later.
OLIVIA MUNN DOCUMENTED CANCER JOURNEY FOR SON TO SHOW HIM ‘I TRIED MY BEST’ IF SHE ‘DIDN’T MAKE IT’
“It was like watching a man in a tsunami,” Munn shared of her now-husband’s sobriety journey after leaving rehab for the second time. “I was watching someone newly sober, at the edge of a cliff, and I didn’t know him well enough to help him.”
“In my head, I’m thinking, I don’t know really what’s happening with this guy. It feels pretty shaky,” Munn admitted. “But then I would see him at the Troubadour and be like, ‘Man, he’s on fire. He’s just that phenomenal.’”
Mulaney told Munn of his fears of relapsing, although the baby news did not seem to be a factor. “That’s the one thing that made him seem light and happy. I remember he was really excited to tell his parents,” Munn shared.
Things shifted in the sixth month of Munn’s pregnancy, when she decided to get more invested in his sobriety journey, staging a small intervention of her own. Several celebrity friends staged an intervention before he entered rehab in December 2020.
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Together, they decided that Munn would give him random drug tests, something that has continued throughout their relationship, which became more official two months before the birth of their son. “It’s like a relief,” Mulaney told the outlet about getting drug tested. “I like to be able to not even have that be a question in her or anyone else’s mind. Something about peeing in that cup is like, I’m walking this walk. It gives me confidence.”
As much as Munn has been there for Mulaney, the same can be said for Mulaney being there for Munn. In 2023, the actress was diagnosed with breast cancer, having several surgeries, including a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy.
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“It would’ve felt like climbing an iceberg without him,” Munn told People magazine in April. “I don’t think he had a moment to himself, between being an incredibly hands-on father and going to and from the hospital—taking [son] Malcolm to the park, putting him to nap, driving to Cedars-Sinai, hanging out with me, going home, putting Malcolm to bed, coming back to me. And he did it all happily.”
In addition to their nearly 3-year-old son, Malcom, the couple share daughter Méi June, who they welcomed in September via surrogate.
