Originally appeared on E! Online
Olivia Munn and John Mulaney have their routine down.
The couple — who share son Malcolm, 2, and Méi June, 2 months — recently got candid about Mulaney’s history of addiction, shedding light on how it affected the beginning of their relationship, as well as the steps they take to keep him on track.
For Munn — who said she and Mulaney “barely knew each other” when she became pregnant with Malcolm in 2021, shortly after he ended his second stay in rehab — she had to navigate the sobriety journey of someone she was only just starting to get to know, but with whom her life would forever be intertwined.
“I was watching someone newly sober, at the edge of a cliff,” she said in an interview the couple did with GQ, published Nov. 12, noting Mulaney admitted to her he was worried he would relapse. “And I didn’t know him well enough to help him.”
Yet, his worries were never about the baby they were expecting together. “That’s the one thing that made him seem light and happy,” she added. “I remember he was really excited to tell his parents.”
READ Olivia Munn Says She “Barely Knew” John Mulaney When She Got Pregnant With Their Son
Entertainment News
The 44-year-old also reflected on watching Mulaney perform at this time. “In my head, I’m thinking, I don’t know really what’s happening with this guy. It feels pretty shaky,” she admitted. “But then I would see him at the Troubadour and be like, ‘Man, he’s on fire. He’s just that phenomenal.’”
So to help him on his journey, Munn staged a mini-intervention when she was six months pregnant and their personal relationship was still a massive TBD (it wasn’t until a month later they’d decide to raise Malcolm as a couple). At this time, it was decided Munn would give Mulaney random drug tests — a practice the now-married couple has maintained.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter.
For Mulaney, it’s a welcome reminder. “It’s like a relief,” he explained. “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.”
But navigating life together as a couple wasn’t always a given. In fact, when Munn became pregnant with Malcolm and the pair decided they would have the baby together, something romantic was never a given.
Munn explained of that time that, “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.’”
Even though the pair spent much of Munn's pregnancy on separate coasts — the "Newsroom" actress in Los Angeles and the comedian in New York — by the time they welcomed Malcolm, it was as a couple.
And now, with two children between them and a wedding making them husband and wife, the family of four is enjoying the quiet life together in California — and is enjoying seeing Malcolm adapt to life as a West Coast kid as much as Mulaney is adapting as an adult.
“His hair curls in the California air,” he said. “When we’re in Chicago, he has straight little John Mulaney hair. Until my late 20s, Malibu was a funny word to me. It was like saying Zanzibar.”
