14 Maya Rudolph Now You Know Facts

14 Her Boyfriend Is Paul Thomas Anderson

Maya Rudolph and director Paul Thomas Anderson have been together for nearly two decades though the two haven’t married. Rudolph and Anderson have four children together but like to keep their relationship details to themselves. When The Guardian asked her how they’d met she responded, “No, it’s a sweet thing … Too personal. I don’t want to share it.”

13 She is Childhood Friends With Gwenyth Paltrow

When Gwenyth Paltrow hosted Saturday Night Live back in 2002, she told the audience, “I hosted once before, but this week has been really extra-special to me because one of my best friends is on the show now, and I'm so proud of her. We've known each other since we were 7 years old, and she's super-funny and talented, and I'm so glad she's in the cast. Her name is Maya Rudolph.”

12 She Fell In Love With Lisa Bonet As A Kid

Rudolph told NPR, "Growing up I didn't feel like I had a plethora of mixed role models. I fell in love with Lisa Bonet, cause I was like 'I know she's mixed. That girl's mixed and she's so beautiful. My little brain, my little radar, was like 'I sense something, she's one of us, I'm one of her.’”

11 She Is in A Prince Cover Band

Maya Rudolph’s Prince cover band, “Princess” features her friend Gretchen Lieberum and Rudolph singing Prince’s classic rock pop hits. They formed the band in 2011 and Prince himself was a fan of the group before he passed.

10 The Moment She Realized She Loved Comedy

Maya told Interview, “I always enjoyed being ‘on’ and making people laugh. There’s this moment I remember from when I was seven or eight; I was with a friend and she hurt herself and started to cry, and I just started talking in a funny voice. I thought, This is much better than feeling bad; I want to make her feel good. And she started to laugh. There’s the power that comedy gives you, and enjoyment. It’s like, ‘Yes, you’re deferring pain, but isn’t it more fun to laugh while you’re doing it?’"

9 Her Favorite Holiday

Rudolph told Interview, “I’m a Halloween person, which is odd to me because I’m terrified of scary things. I can’t watch scary movies or even a scary movie trailer. But I love the aesthetic of Halloween more than most holidays. We’re not talking about Christmas, of course—let’s put Christmas aside. Anything that gets Halloweenified in orange and black, or has an occasional bat or ghost or monster, really does it for me. But just to be clear, I’m not interested in terror. I’m interested in a delightful monster or witch. I don’t care for jump scares. Don’t scare me or I will definitely punch you in the face.”

8 Her Mom Was A Famous R&B Singer

Her mother was the singer-songwriter Minnie Riperton, who had a hit R&B single in 1975 entitled “Lovin’ You.” You know the one. They play it in slow-mo whenever a hot girl goes by in a teen comedy. Now we know where Maya gets her singing talents.

7 Her Childhood Hero Was Gilda Radner

Rudolph told Interview Magazine, “my dream since I was a little girl was to be on Saturday Night Live. I was truly obsessed with Gilda Radner. I thought she was the funniest woman, and I believed that being a comedian was the most exciting thing you could be. I used to do impressions of her when I was five, because I had hair that looked like Roseanne Roseannadanna. When you find your heroes as a kid, they stay with you forever, and so I’d always wanted to be like Gilda when I grew up—it was something inside of me that I knew I had to do. 

6 Saturday Night Live Was Her Life

Rudolph told The New York Times that for the time she worked at SNL, "I cared about it more than my laundry or my food, which — neither were being well taken care of. I gave all my energy to that show." She also told The Guardian that the dynamic changed by the time she had her first child. She said, “Before I became a mother, the show was the most important thing to me. And it was a strange experience, to go from having one love – and I truly loved that job, it was everything to me – to that love being secondary.”

5 Maya Is Serious About Music

When responding to a question about what she takes seriously aside from her kids and husband, Rudolph said, “Music. Ever since I was a kid, if I fell in love with a musician, I’d daydream that I was them up on stage singing. If I’m ever watching someone playing live, to this day I have to see their shoes. I get very obsessive about it. It makes them a real person for me somehow. I think I’ve always been too scared to play music and be that vulnerable in front of people, so much so that I’ve always put the idea of seriously doing it on the backburner. But the dream is always there.”

4 She Was Supposed To Be In Anchorman

Rudolph told The Guardian, “I had the coolest character. I was a bank robber, with an afro, and I had a good joke about a diaper.” But sadly, when reshoots came around they never called, because they had cut her entire storyline. Her scene did show up in the lost Anchorman movie, Wake Up Ron Burgundy which combined all the extra footage from the first into a new film.

3 Her Dream Reboot

If Maya Rudolph could play any role from any film she said, “It’s a toss-up between Tootsie, and Violet or Doralee in 9 to 5.”

2 The First Time She Met Prince

Maya Rudolph told the story to Interview about how she first met Prince on a five-hour plane ride after they had both appeared on SNL the night before. Prince came over and asked to see her baby and said they had met before, but Maya thought he must have had her confused for someone else, which crushed her. But, the next morning Prince came back to her seat and asked if her baby sang, to which Rudolph responded, “Yeah, she makes noise all the time.” Prince responded, “Maybe that’s your mom. The first time I saw your mom on The Mike Douglas Show, I shed a tear.”

1 She Is Hugely Afraid Of Spiders

Will Ferrell asked Maya Rudolph, “We have known each other for a while and I know it’s not something you normally discuss, but I think your audience would find it extremely helpful if you talked about your enormous fear of spiders. Perhaps you could explain how they laid eggs in your ear when you were a child.” 

Maya responded, “Dear Mr. Ferrell, I consider you a monster for bringing this up. You have now embarrassed me in front of my millions of fans. How dare you. But since you brought it up, I’d just like to take this opportunity to say how much I hate spiders. I f*cking hate them. They can go straight to hell.”

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