Mindy Kaling Addresses Rumor B.J. Novak Fathered Her Children

Mindy Kaling doesn't let speculation surrounding the father of her two children upset her. The Mindy Project alum, 43, addressed rumors that her former boyfriend and longtime best friend B.J. Novak is the father of her 4-year-old daughter Katherine and 1-year-old son Spencer in a new interview with Marie Claire.

"It doesn't bother me," said Kaling of the speculation. "He's the godparent to both my kids – and they have such a great relationship." The Sex Lives of College Girls co-creator said the rumors haven't "affected my happiness at all, it hasn't affected my kids or B.J.," noting that "if that's what is going to be titillating to people, I'll take it."

The Office alum dated on and off for years but remained close after their final split. Kaling has so far kept the paternity of her children private and has refrained from showing the kids' faces on social media, which she said is something she'll wait to share until they are old enough to make decisions about it themselves. "I want them to be old enough to talk to me about it and [tell me] how they want me to talk about it," she said. "I'm the only parent my kids have...I think I err on the side of super cautious so that there's less things that they can potentially be mad at me about down the line."

Kaling previously called Novak "so much more like family now than a platonic friend" in a May 2019 Good Housekeeping interview when revealing he was the godfather to her daughter. "He comes over like once a week. Sometimes he'll come over just to hang out with her," she added. The Never Have I Ever co-creator admitted that outsiders might consider her relationship with the Vengeance star odd, acknowledging, "If I was on the outside looking at it, I would think the same thing." However, Novak has become "a real staple" in her household. "When you've known someone for as long as I've known him – the time that we met each other, which was like 24. Now, we're both almost 40. It's such a long time that he truly is just a part of my family," Kaling shared.