John Mulaney’s Haters Revisit Divorce Drama After He Revives His ‘Wife Guy’ Routine

It’s been three and a half years since John Mulaney separated from his ex-wife of seven years, multimedia artist Anna Marie Tendler, but the grown-up Tumblr girls who have never met either of them remember the breakup like it was yesterday.

When the Saturday Night Live writers’ room veteran returned to host the show this past Saturday, Mulaney began his opening monologue with a couple minutes of riffing about his kids, his wife and his mother-in-law, all expected topics for a newly married father of two to tackle. Mulaney and actress Olivia Munn tied the knot back in July, two months before the birth of their daughter and just shy of three years since they welcomed their son into the world amidst mounting social media acrimony over the dubious timeline of Mulaney’s divorced-to-dad transition.

During his SNL set, Mulaney joked about his new family’s diminutive stature, making a point to mention Munn’s Chinese-Vietnamese heritage in the bit. Since this is now the second time that Mulaney has mentioned the race of his wife at the time while riffing about the qualities stereotypically assigned to that group, the sizable contingency of his scorned ex-fans who stay abreast of his artistry and personal life pounced on the opportunity to point out that we’ve seen this kind of comedy from him before:

Longtime Mulaney fans or former-fans-turned-haters will recall how, in three consecutive specials leading up to his split with Tendler, Mulaney made a point to mention his fondness for Jewish women and his now-ex-wife's stereotypically Semitic qualities, saying of Tendler in the 2018 special Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, “She is a dynamite, five-foot, Jewish bitch and she’s the best.” 

So, when Mulaney took the stage on Saturday and started riffing about Munn’s half-Chinese-Vietnamese heritage, his return to playfully racial/racist “wife guy” humor sparked an extra degree of outrage beyond the usual backlash to his every mention of his new family. 

Of course, the “John Mulaney is a racist misogynist” crowd is far from the only voice on Twitter and TikTok where parasocial discourse over Mulaney’s personal life will continue to rage until a solar flare mercifully knocks out communications systems worldwide. There are plenty of remaining Mulaney fans on every social media platform who continue to snarkily point out that two strangers getting a divorce a couple years ago is none of the internet’s business, and Mulaney’s stand-up routine has always been so much more than just stereotypical jokes about his significant other. 

Ultimately, Mulaney is still a stand-up comedian post-divorce, and comedians tend to make jokes about their personal lives, especially ones with young children. If every comic who has ever had a bad breakup had to quit joking about their personal life, we’d be stuck watching virgins host SNL every Saturday for the rest of time. 

Good thing Mulaney’s most ravenous haters don’t have weekend plans.