"It was at the height of the pandemic" - Nick Kroll opens up about organizing John Mulaney's intervention

During a recent appearance on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd, Nick Kroll recalled organizing for his friend, and longtime collaborator, John Mulaney's intervention in 2020, before he checked into rehab to seek addiction treatment.

Kroll, while opening u,p said that he was "so deeply scared that he (Mulaney) was gonna die" at the time,

"It was so scary and brutal to go through. He was in New York. I was in L.A. It was the height of the pandemic. So it was incredibly stressful to be in the midst of the pandemic, trying to literally coordinate and produce an intervention, bringing a brunch of different people together, friends from college, other close friends"

Why did Nick Kroll have to plan an intervention for John Mulaney?

Comedian and actor John Mulaney, who first got sober in his early 20s after battling addiction, relapsed in 2020, during the pandemic.

In December 2020, Mulaney's friends, including Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Nick Kroll, Natasha Lyonne, and others, gathered at his residence to stage an intervention. After the intervention, Mulaney checked into a 60-day rehab program in Pennsylvania.

At the time, Nick Kroll had his own set of challenges, including a pregnant wife and filming, Don't Worry Darling, as he "was running around New York City like a true madman."

While talking about the process of planning the intervention, Nick Kroll noted that he had both "empathy" and a "tremendous amount of anger" for Mulaney,

"I have a clear memory of being outside my house - someone was working inside my house, it was again (the middle of) COVID - sitting on the ground, on the phone with him, both of us crying, and me just being like, "I'am so scared you're going to die.' And I felt him feeling the same way, but also like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah...anyway. I gotto go. I'm in this new Airbnb."

In his Netflix special, Baby J, which was released in 2023, Mulaney used humor to recount his rehab and intervention experience. He also said that he was "grateful" to everyone at the intervention for confronting him and saving his life.

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Nick Kroll, while talking about their friendship, post rehab, noted that after Mulaney got out of rehab and started doing standup about his experience, the comedian was still "pretty f**king pi**ed about the intervention." Mulaney was allegedly angry, and Kroll wasn't sure if he liked Mulaney's humor to be directed at him.

The two friends eventually sorted things out, and Kroll gave credit to Mulaney for being so "f**king funny and dynamic and intoxicating as a performer."

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