Mindy Kaling surprised a lot of people when she announced she was pregnant in 2017 as she was publicly single and decided to keep the identity of her baby daddy a secret – though many people wish it was BJ Novak.
When baby Katherine, whose middle name is Swati for Mindy’s late mother, was born in December 2017, Mindy didn’t put any information regarding the father on the birth certificate, those fields were instead left blank.
Speaking with Glamour recently while promoting her new film Late Night, Mindy revealed why she keeps Katherine’s face off her social media channels.
“I do feel entitled to have privacy about my daughter and my relationships. It’s really essential to my life that there be something not everybody knows about.”
She described the daunting experience of bringing Katherine home for the first time, saying, “I remember bringing her home and being in my house with her for the first time and thinking, ‘Huh.’ According to movies and TV this is traditionally the time when my mother and spouse are supposed to be here, sharing this experience with me, and I looked around and I had neither.”
“But then that feeling went away, because the reality is, I’m not doing it by myself. I’m surrounded by family and friends who love and support me. And the joy I feel from being with my daughter Katherine eclipses anything.”
In another interview with the New York Times, Mindy gave a very good reason for why she hasn’t spoken publicly about the father, “My feeling is, that until I speak to my daughter [about her paternity], I’m not going to talk to anyone else about it.”
While most of us were dying to find out who the father was, this decision makes so much sense. Maybe we’ll find out one day, maybe we won’t, but none of us should know before Katherine does!