Slate recently published a great deep-dive piece on the weird public fascination with comedian John Mulaney's relationship with actress Olivia Munn, following her recent heartbreaking reveal that she has been battling breast cancer.
When Mulaney infamously broke up with his wife, the artist Anna Marie Tendler, shortly after emerging from rehab in 2021, and then began a relationship with actress Olivia Munn, with whom he then had a baby later that year, it alienated some of Mulaney's fan base.
As Slate notes, Mulaney had built his standup routine around being a “Wife Guy,” sharing cute anecdotes about his life with Tendler and leading fans to believe they were a perfect couple. When Mulaney and Tendler broke up and he found a new love, it shattered that on-stage veneer and led to the term “parasocial” having a viral moment. (The word refers to the relationship members of the public illogically feel they have with a celebrity who puts much of their life on display through mass media, thus making fans feel like they “know” the performer).
Mulaney, Munn and Tendler went on living their lives and Mulaney did his best to embrace the fallout from all his life changes in his winning Netflix comedy special John Mulaney: Baby J, which delved into his drug use and rehab journey (but steered clear of talking about his relationship with Munn).
John Mulaney, Olivia Munn and Anna Marie Tendler back in the news
There wasn't a lot of other news from the trio until a few weeks ago, when Anna Marie Tendler announced she was publishing a new tell-all revenge memoir entitled Men Have Called Her Crazy.
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Then, John Mulaney and Olivia Munn attended the Oscars, where Mulaney as a presenter delivered a memorable bit on the film Field of Dreams.
This was followed by the tragic post from Olivia Munn last week revealing that she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer about ten months ago and had been undergoing treatment ever since.
All of this news stirred back up the public fascination with John Mulaney, Olivia Munn and Anna Marie Tendler. While most fans offered words of sympathy and support to Munn as she battled the terrible disease, some cruel posters unconscionably insinuated the diagnosis was somehow a deserved punishment for Mulaney and Munn's relationship after his divorce from Tendler.
Posts like this are far from the norm but unfortunately have gone viral nonetheless, although maybe more so due to outrage at the cynical claims made and not necessarily because people agree with the heartless message.
Another cringe reaction to Munn's health scare were commenters who thought the timing of Munn's health disclosure was somehow designed to deflect attention from Tendler's memoir announcement.
There were, however, some on point responses to this bizarre line of reasoning that went viral themselves, such as X/Twitter user Kayleigh Donaldson's biblical takedown, “I have already seen people claim that Olivia Munn talking about being diagnosed with breast cancer is ‘weird timing' because of John Mulaney's ex-wife's impending book release and I want those creeps to know that they will never see the light of Heaven.”
Regardless of the rationale behind these tone deaf posts, it's a new low for the anti-John Mulaney/Olivia Munn crowd. No one deserves to have their raw and honest post about heart-wrenching personal health news be used against them by social media users whose preoccupation with the personal lives of Mulaney, Munn and Anna Marie Tendler was bizarre to begin with.
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