In recent discussion with GQ about fatherhood and sobriety, John Mulaney he recalled a mini-intervention by his wife Olivia Munn about six months after her first pregnancy.

The couple agreed to have Munn submit to random drug tests after learning they were expecting their first child, a son named Malcolm, now 2 — and it’s a ritual they still implement today. “It’s like a relief,” Mulaney said of the practice. “I love not having a single question on her or anyone else’s mind. Something about peeing in that cup is like, I’m going for this ride. It gives me confidence.”

The comedian, who has long spoken about his struggles with drug addiction, relapsed and entered rehab in late 2020, a journey he recounts candidly in his Emmy-winning 2023 Netflix special. Baby J. He also separated from his longtime wife Anna Marie Tendler around that time and began a relationship with Munn shortly after, a move that was closely scrutinized. “You may think it’s silly, but it feels very distant,” he said of that period of tabloid fervor.

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Munn and Mulaney welcomed Malcolm in November 2021 after a whirlwind engagement. “It was nothing close to a ‘date,'” Munn said GQ of the relationship. “I barely met him.” After finding out about the pregnancy, “It wasn’t necessarily, ‘We’re going to be married and live together,’ or anything, it was, ‘I’m going to be involved in some way,'” she said.

She recalled of her partner’s post-rehab period: “It was like watching a man in a tsunami. I was looking at someone newly sober, on the edge of a cliff, and I didn’t know them well enough to help them.” The two eventually decided to co-parent as a couple and married over the summer. They welcomed a second child together, a daughter named Mei via surrogate, in September.

Mulaney recently returned to Studio 8H earlier this month to host Saturday Night Live with musical guest Chappell Roanmarking the sixth time as a host. He served as a writer for the series from 2008 to 2013, where he contributed to a number of memorable sketches and characters, including co-creating Bill HaderStefon’s lover.

His monologue similarly touched on navigating fatherhood while caring for his own parents, as well as his stint in rehab and the tabloid frenzy surrounding his relationship with Munn. “In 2020, I was in rehab. I talked to my dad on the phone and he was very emotional,” Mulaney said in the monologue. “And he was trying to think of something wise to say and at one point he said, ‘I just wish grandpa was here.’

He joked to Mulaney: “I said, ‘Dad, if Grandpa was here, he’d be 118 years old, and I highly doubt he’d have any good advice on how to handle social media backlash.’