Mindy Kaling Says One of Her Office Co-stars Suggested Her Character Lose Some Weight

On Thursday, Mindy Kaling sat down with Good Morning, America and discussed that one time one of her co-workers on The Office made her feel terrible about her body.

When she was 25 years old, and working as both writer and actor on The Office, one of her co-stars made a suggestion for a fun “joke”: that their character should suggest that her character, Kelly Kapoor, drop 15 pounds. “This is my greatest insecurity and someone just called it out,” she said on Thursday. “It’s really devastating.”

This shitty joke and relatively painful experience is one that Kaling carried with her throughout her other creative endeavors. “I had a reckoning where I’m like, ‘People are scrutinizing [me], and not only are they scrutinizing [me], they’re verbalizing their displeasure with how I look because I don’t look a certain way,” she said. “That kind of dissonance has really affected so much of what I write about [and] the kind of characters I play.” This is clearly evidenced in the clip above, where Chris Messina’s character on The Mindy Project suggests the very same thing to Kaling’s character, but is met with the indignation and anger that it deserves.

Kaling also discussed her most recent work, the Netflix show Never Have I Ever, which is a delightful little teen comedy that is likely meant for children, but is also great for adults (hello). Devi, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, is precisely the sort of character Kaling wanted to see on TV when she was growing up—a “dark-skinned Indian girl” who gets to be the main character. “She’s real, and she dates and boys like her, boys hate her, she goes in and out of drama, fights with her friends, but she’s normal and she’s the point of view character and so you can look to that and feel seen, to use a phrase that people much younger than me use,” Kaling said.

What’s the lesson here, if any? Don’t say things about other people’s bodies! Also, watch Never Have I Ever, it’s very cute, it might make you cry if the wind is blowing right, and also, Paxton Hall-Yoshida forever. [People]

• Nate Berkus survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, lost his partner to the tsunami, and now has been able to get back into the water without fear. I mean this sincerely— good for him! That shit is scary!! [People]
• Melissa Joan Hart got breakthrough COVID and says, “it’s bad.” [Instagram]
• Here’s Prince Harry back on his lil’ polo pony clomping around the field in a charity match. [Page Six]
• Bald demon king Jeff Bezos has something I want very badly and that is an artisanal soft-serve ice cream machine inside his ding-dang house!!! [NY Post]
• Dorina Medley, who is no longer a Housewife, but is still determined to make it nice anyway, thinks that it would be a “shame” if the gals don’t film in the fall in New York, especially because it’s the first fall “post-pandemic.” Not to be a total bummer, but the panny is still ongoing and also, the entire New York franchise needs to be overhauled or canceled, so maybe it makes sense that they’re taking a break because they should figure out whether or not they wanna put this thing to bed for good or not! [Us Weekly]
• Lil Nas X is happy in his new relationship and that is genuinely nice to hear. [People]