Why Fans Are Freaking Out About Mindy Kaling's (Now Confirmed!) Pregnancy
Mindy Kaling is pregnant. We first learned about it when E! published a pregnancy reveal story last month, and Oprah, Kaling's co-star in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time, confirmed the news to People.
But now Mindy herself has confirmed the pregnancy for the first time in an interview with Sunday TODAY. While the mom-to-be just broke her silence, the Internet has spent the last month freaking out harder than Mindy Lahiri at an all-you-can-eat bear claw convention. Here are a few reasons why:
The celebrity baby gossip machine needs a new bump There’s a reason the media covers celebrity pregnancies like international incidents. Along with cat videos and Trump memes, the internet loves a good bump watch. And while the last six months or so have belonged to Beyoncé (with brief breaks for the Clooney twins and Serena Williams), that journey wrapped last month with one Instagram-breaking photo. Of course, this means we need a new object of collective obsession. And as Mindy Kaling would say… "Why not me?"
Because Mamma Mia, it's a good mystery A vocal and diehard rom-com fan, Kaling has been kind enough to present us with our very own real life Mamma Mia! mystery — kind of. She isn't dating anyone at the moment — or at least not anyone she has commented on publicly. While she presumably knows the identity of her alleged baby's daddy, the rest of us are in the dark — so let the speculation (and ABBA dance parties) begin!
The first name to come up has been B.J. Novak, Kaling’s on-again, off-again flame/BFF/co-star. Kaling and Novak have such a complicated and unique relationship that they are in the process of writing a book about it. No word if said tome is complete, but a surprise pregnancy ending would certainly up the juice factor. When it comes to other potential candidates, no one’s quite as compelling as Novak . . . unless she hooked up with her Wrinkle In Time co-star Chris Pine?! (Note: other celebrity matchmakers have proposed this theory). According to People, she isn’t telling “even her closest friends” about her mystery man’s identity. She has, however, been extremely vocal about her Mamma Mia! obsession.
We really can't wait for her take on pregnancy In her books, on her show and on her Twitter feed, Kaling has spoken openly and hilariously about the absurd expectations that society places on women, from looking a certain way to having a certain type of management style to being a certain type of mother. Just look at The Mindy Project plotline around Danny wanting Mindy to give up her career for baby Leo. (Spoiler alert: her answer was "No.") So when it comes to her own pregnancy, she’s not likely to be one of those celebrity moms who gushes about how her life didn’t have purpose before parenthood and/or brags about how she lost the baby weight by “running around after her kid.”
After all, truth bombs are her middle name Remember how the rest of the entertainment world was all, “women don’t fart,” and Mindy was all ffffftttttttttttttttttt (or however you write a fart sound)? Flatulence humour has long been a staple of The Mindy Project, which is more important than you might think (see above re: bucking of gender expectations). Now imagine the same candour applied to the less glamorous aspects of parenthood — the ones you don’t tend to see in Beyoncé’s home movies, or on Instagram, where most new moms are perma-#blessed and look like they have a glam squad on call.
Because if anyone deserves to “have it all,” it’s our celebrity bestie For all of the reasons discussed above, a lot of Mindy Kaling fans don't think of her as a typical celebrity — she’s fun, fearless and, for many people, the ideal imaginary bestie. She also has an amazing career, a bunch of great friends (both celebs and her civilians) and this unbelievable new pad in L.A. In other words, she is the pal whose life is so great that you kind of want to hate her — until she lets one rip and you remember why you totally don’t. A new baby will mean adding a pretty significant ball to an already impressive juggling act. What will “having it all” look like for Mindy? We’re not sure, but you can bet her version of motherhood will be as relatable and real as everything else she does.
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