Who is Mindy Kaling?

Mindy Kaling has brushed aside rumours suggesting that the biological son of her children, Katherine and Spencer, is her The Office co-star B.J. Novak. The 43-year-old actor-comedian has said in an interview with Marie Claire that such rumours have not affected the friendship she shares with Novak. Kaling also stated that the only time she will reveal the name of her children’s biological father is when they are old enough to talk about the issue.

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Kaling was born in 1979, which was also the year her parents moved from India to Cambridge, Massachusetts. While her father hails from Chennai, Kaling’s mother is a Bengali. She is named after a character from the TV series Monk & Mindy. The actress began her career working as an intern on the NBC show, Late Night With Conan O’Brian. Her first big break came when she bagged the role of Kelly Kapoor in The Office. She has worked in an episode of Larry David’s show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and has also served as a guest writer for Saturday Night Live.

The Mindy Project, a show Kaling created and wrote for Fox, premiered in 2012 and ran successfully for six seasons straight, establishing her as one of the top talents in American television. The very next year, Kaling found herself listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

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2020 saw Kaling teaming up with streaming giant Netflix for the semi-autobiographical show, Never Have I Ever. The first two seasons of the show met with overwhelming critical acclaim, but also faced accusations of being anti-Semitic to a certain degree. While a new season of Never Have I Ever is set to release on August 12, Kaling is also focussing on an upcoming comedy in which she will star alongside Priyank Chopra, another Indian-origin A-list Hollywood celebrity.