Mindy Kaling Recalls ‘Genuinely Scary’ Time a Man Broke Into B.J. Novak’s Car While She Was Pregnant

Mindy Kaling is looking back on a “genuinely scary situation” with a stranger who broke into B.J. Novak’s car while she was pregnant with her now-4-year-old daughter Katherine. The Office star recalled the terrifying moment on Monday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live in honor of Halloween.

Kaling recalled going out to dinner in Los Angeles with Novak during her first pregnancy, only to encounter a stranger she initially thought was a fan of their NBC comedy. “The most genuinely scary situation I’ve ever been in was when I was actually eight-and-a-half-months pregnant with her,” Kaling shared. After parking the car, The Morning Show star “noticed there was a weird kind of guy, staring at us from the parking meter.”

While she initially was worried, Kaling’s nerves were temporarily eased when the man told Novak and her he loved them in The Office, leading her to think he was simply a starstruck fan. “Then we walked down to go to the restaurant,” she continued. “Restaurant’s closed, for whatever reason. And then we walked back to the car, and when we walk back to the car – what we think is the car – we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s probably not it, because there’s somebody sitting in the driver’s seat,’ and we keep walking.”

Realizing they had walked too far, Kaling and Novak walked back to his car, where they realized the man they had talked to earlier “had gotten into B.J.’s car, was sitting in the driver’s seat and had B.J.’s laptop open and was on B.J.’s laptop.” The Mindy Project alum explained incredulously, “Which is so strange – he didn’t try to steal his stuff.” 

The two stars decided to confront the man despite Kaling’s pregnancy, and the actress went to the driver’s side door to block him in. “My sense of my sense of justice was greater than my sense of wanting to live,” she joked. “And then B.J. went to their side, and was like, ‘What did you take?’ The guy kept looking over at the door to try to get out. I was sitting there like, ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Finally, B.J. got his laptop back and all of his stuff and he nodded to me, like, ‘You can open the door and let him out.’”

It was then that the “strangest” thing happened. When the man got out of the car, he said, “You guys should be careful. Anybody could just get into your car.” Kaling added with a laugh, “As though this whole thing had been this like, ruse, he had planned to teach us a valuable lesson. By the way, it did teach us that! And then he kinda wandered away.”