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John Mulaney got candid about his experience going to rehab in his new Netflix Special Baby J, which premiered on Tuesday, April 25. The comedian, 40, revealed that shortly after getting to rehab, he got a call from his pal Pete Davidson, 29. John also assured fans that the two of them never did drugs together.
John revealed that Pete didn’t attend his “star-studded” intervention, but said The King Of Staten Island star called him while he was detoxing in rehab. John explained that some people believed that he and Pete had done drugs together, but he said that wasn’t the case at all. “Some people suggested that he and I did drugs together, because he has tattoos, and I am plain,” he joked. “I’ve never done drugs with Pete. He’s always been very supportive of my sobriety.”
While speaking about the call he received from Pete as he detoxed, John said that he told Pete that people wouldn’t think that the two of them had used substances together. “No one’s going to blame you,” John said while recounting the phone call together.
John has not shied away from speaking about his issues with substance use in the past. He’s spoken about not drinking in his 2012 special New In Town and made references to past drug use in 2018’s Kid Gorgeous. He had also been open about his sobriety in interviews besides his specials. He was also self-aware on the tour leading up the special’s release, poking fun at the timing, releasing a shirt that simply read “I saw him right after he got outta rehab.”
John revealed he’d checked into rehab in September 2020 in a September 2021 interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers. He revealed that after hosting Saturday Night Live’s Halloween episode, he relapsed, and his friends staged an intervention in December 2020, when he checked into rehab again.
John humorously recalled the intervention, filled with his famous friends, during the intervention. “That’s how bad of a drug problem I had that when I opened the door and saw people, I went, ‘This is probably an intervention about my drug problem,’” he told Seth Meyers. “Sitting here tonight, I’m so grateful to you and to everyone there for saving my life, okay? That night, I was not grateful.”
Shortly before the special was released, John also reflected on how many people had trouble perceiving him as someone with addiction issues during an appearance on fellow comic Theo Von’s podcast This Past Weekend. “I certainly tried to talk about it onstage as having had a drug and alcohol problem, but it just, something about me seems—so to me, it’s like, well of course, the guy that seems like he has it all together has the problem,” he said. “I really thought that I was able to achieve at life with the drugs as opposed to in spite of them. It took me a long time over the past couple of years to realize that I did well at what I do in spite of drugs, not because of them.”
The stand-up special is the comic’s first since he released Kid Gorgeous in 2018. Since releasing the last special, he has hosted SNL, where he used to work as a writer, multiple times. He’s also lent his voice to a number of different movies, including Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. He also wrote and starred in the 2019 children’s variety special John Mulaney And The Sack Lunch Bunch.
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