Mindy Kaling’s Response to Whether She Would Date B.J. Novak Again Resurfaces Amid Speculation They’ve Been Secretly Together

2004: BJ Novak & Mindy Kaling Meet

BJ Novak and Mindy Kaling met while they were working at The Office. Mindy played Kelly Kapoor while BJ played Ryan Howard. The two also wrote for the show.

2004: B.J. Novak & Mindy Kaling Start Dating

Shortly after the premiere, the two started dating. “No one, including us, ever really knew, ‘Is this dating? Is this not dating?’ We were never really dating, we were never really not dating,” BJ told Vulture in 2012. “We didn’t know. No one knew. All you’d know for sure was that you’d always find one of us next to the other, even if we weren’t getting along.”

The two also said that their relationship helped inspire the romantic dynamic between their characters. He told the side that it was “an observation from the writers’ room that Mindy and I were extremely close and constantly fighting.” As to what they were fighting about, “Oh, anything,” he says. “Honestly, we would sometimes not be speaking for an hour and I couldn’t remember why. I don’t think she could either. The tone in choosing which place to order lunch from. The tone that one of us would have about Thai food in general. Who knows?”

2007: B.J. Novak & Mindy Kaling Break Up

The ex-couple called it quits in 2007, but the breakup wasn’t drastic in their eyes. “In real life, I think we just essentially grew up and it became more of a transition,” the actor told Vulture.

In a 2015 interview with Howard Stern, Mindy revealed that he initiated their final breakup. “He broke up with me,” she said. “It was years and years ago that that breakup happened. I was so sad, not angry, sad.”

2013: B.J. Novak Appears on The Mindy Project

Mindy Kaling left The Office in 2012 to pursue her own TV show The Mindy Project. B.J. Novak played Jamie, who was Mindy’s love interest. He also helped produce the first season of the show

2013: Mindy Kaling & B.J. Novak attend the Met Gala

The two walked the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art steps for the Met Gala in 2013, you know as friends.

May 2015: Mindy Kaling Gets Real About Her Relationship With B.J. Novak

In an InStyle profile, Mindy laid down the blueprint of her relationship with B.J. Novak. “I will freely admit: My relationship with BJ Novak is weird as hell,” she said. “He is not my boyfriend, but he is not my best friend. I guess you could describe our relationship as a ‘romantically charged camaraderie with loud arguments,’ but I don’t think Facebook would accept this as a new status.”

2019: Mindy Kaling Reveals That B.J. Novak is Her Kids’ Godfather

In an interview with Good Housekeeping, Mindy revealed that B.J. is her daughter Katherine “Kit” Swati’s goodfather. He became her second child Spencer Avu’s godfather too. The actress has not revealed who the father is.

2022: Mindy Kaling Addresses Rumors B.J. Novak is the Father to Her Kids

In a 2022 interview with Marie Claire, Mindy Kaling revealed how she feels about rumors that B.J. is her kids’ father. “It doesn’t bother me,” she told the outlet. “He’s the godparent to both my kids—and they have such a great relationship—and so far [the rumors haven’t] affected my happiness at all, it hasn’t affected my kids or BJ… If that’s what is going to be titillating to people, I’ll take it.

2022: Mindy & B.J. Poke Fun at Their Relationship at the Primetime Emmys

The friendly duo presented Best Limited or Anthology Series at the 2022 Emmys.

“To all the nominees, we just want to say congratulations, you lazy sons of bitches,” Mindy said. “How are you getting away with this?”

“Eight episodes?” BJ later quipped with Mindy adding, “We came out doing network sitcoms, 22 episodes a year.”

“And that show, that would take up your whole life. No time for other projects,” he later said. Mindy continued, “No time for a social life. You had no choice but to form insanely complicated relationships with your costars.”

December 2022: Mindy Kaling Reveals Why She’ll Never Date B.J. Novak

Mindy Kaling revealed why she’ll never date B.J. Novak in an interview with Drew Barrymore. “He is a wonderful friend and he is the godparent of both my kids and he loves children and they’re so attached to him,” she recalled. “He’s really part of our family, but we’ve known each other for a long, long time and I think anyone who’s been friends with someone for 18, 19 years and at one point dated and now doesn’t, they maybe understand this. You have exes that you wouldn’t necessarily marry now.”

February 2023: B.J. Novak Presents the Mindy Kaling the Norman Lear Achievement Award at the 2023 Producers Guild Awards

B.J. presented the Norman Lear Achievement Award to Mindy at the 2023 Producers Guild Awards, and he joked about their relationship with each other. He called himself and Mindy “reckless idiots” when they were dating. He recalled arguing behind the scenes at The Office “forever grinding the writers room into a halt.”

He also described their romantic relationship as a “tumultuous, romantic, toxic, boundary-less mess,” and The Office producers wanted them to “have scenes together” because they were “pretty funny.”

February 2025: B.J. Novak attends Mindy Kaling’s Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony

On February 18, 2025, Mindy Kaling was honored at the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony and B.J. Novak was in attendance. The actor gave a speech to his former co-star and called her “a brilliant and wildly successful showrunner,” as well as “an incredible mother of three, a deep and caring daughter and friend and mentor to so many.”

“You’d be on the walk of talent if they had one,” he added. “You’d be on the walk of friendship. You’d be on the walk of compassionate parenthood. But let’s face it, all of these would be terrible field trips, so here you are instead, very deservedly, a person who means so much to so many on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

Novak jokingly reassured the audience that Kaling was also “very superficial” in her “spare time.”

When she was called to do a speech, she called B.J. “an important and integral part of my family.”