John Mulaney, like many other celebrities, has been open about his struggles with addiction. After all, celebrities can often use their platform to talk about the things that are hard for them, and, in turn, make it easier for everyone else listening.
So, in Mulaney’s newest Netflix comedy special, John Mulaney: Baby J, it’s no wonder the actor talked about his journey of addiction and sobriety, including the intervention his friends organized back in 2021.
According to Mulaney, 12 of his friends in the comedy community gathered (both in New York and over Zoom) under the pretense of “dinner with a friend from college,” per Entertainment Tonight. Once he arrived, however, he knew it was an intervention.
“It was a star-studded intervention,” Mulaney joked. “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. It was like a ‘We Are the World’ of alternative comedians over the age of 40. All comedians. Yet no one said a funny thing the entire night.”
Mulaney also gave fans a glimpse of how he was doing at the time. “I was going psychotic,” he recalled. “I am sitting there in an awful chair, crashing from cocaine. No one will let me go to the bathroom to freshen up and the funniest people are staring at me, refusing to do jokes. It was maddening.”
“Fred Armisen was serious,” he added as an example. “Do you know how off-putting that is?” He didn’t do a character or a voice. He was just like, ‘Hey, John, I’m really worried about everything you’re going through.’ And I was like, ‘Ah, next! Next!'”
As one could expect, Mulaney didn’t take the intervention quite well. “I was so mad that night,” he remembered. “They had tricked me. I mean, at its core, an intervention is a prank. They had pranked me. They were trying to tell me what to do with my life, they were trying to control me. They were sending me away to rehab for months. I felt powerless. I felt very angry.”
Looking back, however, Mulaney is thankful that moment happened years ago. After all, since then he started his relationship with Olivia Munn and welcomed his first child, 1-year-old Malcolm. “Getting to do this show, and standing here, listen, I am grateful to everyone at my intervention,” he said. “They confronted me and they totally saved my life.” Is anyone else emotional here or is it just us?
Before you go, click here to see what celebrities say about the moment that helped them recover from addiction:
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