Mindy, If You’re Reading This, I Hope You’re Free
BJ Novak is dating Delaney Rowe and on Mindy’s behalf, I’m taking it personally
Let’s talk about the longest-running situationship in Hollywood that never quite ended, never quite began, and somehow still manages to emotionally exhaust all of us even though we’re not in it: Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak.
For years, their dynamic has been this perfect mix of “Are they or aren’t they?” with a sprinkle of “Maybe they were, but shouldn’t be.” They wrote each other into characters and fed us a steady diet of ambiguous quotes and pictures of them at events that for all intents and purposes are romantic… I think?
But now to everyone’s surprise and total whiplash BJ Novak is dating TikTok star Delaney Rowe.
Yes, that Delaney Rowe. The one whose videos you’ve definitely been served on your FYP where she plays every single 28-year-old who says “I’m not like other girls” but then proceeds to be exactly like every other girl you’ve ever met at a wine bar in Los Feliz. To be clear— I love her! She’s funny, she’s hot, she’s in her satire bag. But there’s just something about her and BJ that is just odd.
@delaneysayshello Day 2 *sighs in French* @Panera Bread #panerapartner ♬ original sound - Delaney Rowe
How did they even meet? Did he slide into her DMs? I know they’re both adults, but the age gap still feels SO weird.
Nevertheless, all I can think about with this whole situation is:
I really, really hope Mindy Kaling has moved on.
Because she deserves to.
Especially because she’s been on such a roll lately! She’s glowing, hanging with her lovely kids, making cool work, and wearing fire fits.
And yet, her work—and frankly, her public life—has always been haunted by one white man in a slightly rumpled button-down: BJ Novak.
The way people speculate that he’s the father of her kids (unclear!), the way he showed up to kiss her forehead when she got her star on the Walk of Fame (??), the way he’s just always there but not fully committed… may that kind of love never find me.
I hope Mindy is over it, too. Like please… he’s dating a girl 20 years younger than him. As expected! But she also might not be. If Kelly Kapoor is anything like Mindy IRL, the mediocre white man will always win, even against an insanely handsome ripped south asian doctor.
We don’t need any more Kelly Kapoors/Mindy Kaling derivatives in media or in our lives. We need main characters who know their worth. We need storylines where South Asian women are desired, chosen, and not just funny enough to hang around. We need something that doesn’t look like a prolonged audition for a man who once wrote a spec script and still brags about it.
Mindy, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re somewhere laughing.
