Mindy Kaling is past her teen crush phase, but that doesn’t mean she’s taken romance off the table.
In conversation with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager on Monday’s episode Today44 year old I never did the creator said that her once obsession with the boy is “definitely” over.
“I think when I was younger, I was so far away from anything that could get a boy’s attention, so I just imagined it,” the actress said, reflecting on her teenage years.
She continued: “I had an overactive imagination because even then I was like a writer and a creative, so I loved these stories about people falling in love and going to the movies and watching Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in romantic comedies and everything.”
At the time, romance was like “science fiction” for Kaling. “It was so far from everything I was a part of,” she told Kotb, 59, and Bush Hager, 41.
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Natasha Campos/Getty Images for Andie Swim
Now, The Mindy Project the star has slightly more realistic expectations about love, but is still open to it.
“I’m still a romantic at heart and I write these stories about people who find love when they least expect it. Well, of course, I’m open to it and I believe in magic and timing.”
Mindy Kaling reveals why her desire to have children ‘increased’ after her mum died
Kaling added that her father found love again after her mother’s death, and his second chance at romance gives her hope, too.
“He’s Indian and he was in his 60s and he moved to LA not knowing anyone, and then they met in the same apartment building. And they are such an amazing couple.”
She continued: “People find love in unexpected places. So I don’t know about me personally right now, but I’m always open to it.”
Mindy Kaling talks to Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager on ‘Today.’
TODAY/ YouTube
Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie both share that they didn’t go to prom — because they weren’t invited!
Earlier in the show, Kaling spoke with Kotb and Savannah Guthrie about another high school milestone — prom.
The co-hosts revealed that neither of them went to prom after they bonded with Kaling about being “huge” nerds in high school.
But Kaling shared that she went to both prom and prom.
Kotb followed up, asking, “Wait, did they ask you or did you ask him?” Kody said. “Because I only got a date when I asked. That’s why I’m asking.”
Kaling responded sarcastically, “How dare you?” before saying she was “asked” for both dances.
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Kalinga’s love life has long been a private matter for her – and thus a prominent source of public intrigue.
She has two children, daughter Katherine “Kit” Swati (5) and son Spencer Ava (3), but she has never revealed the identity of the children’s father.
One of her only public romances was her on-and-off relationship with her Office costar BJ Novak.
The two dated in the early years of the show before breaking up for good in 2007. “We were in love with each other and we were reckless idiots,” Novak, now 44, said of a relationship he described as “tumultuous, romantic, toxic , mayhem without limits” while presenting Kaling with the Norman Lear Television Achievement Award in February.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty
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However, their relationship was the main source of public interest as they remained close friends after the split.
Last year, Kaling told Drew Barrymore during a guest appearance on her talk show that Novak is “part of our family,” noting that he’s her children’s godfather “and they’re very attached to him,” but that doesn’t mean romance is involved.
“We’ve known each other for a long, long time and I think that anyone who has been friends with someone for 18, 19 years and dated at one point, but not now, they might understand that. You have exes that you wouldn’t necessarily marry now.”
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Source: HIS Education