Forging a new path. Anna Marie Tendler is looking to the future with hope after finalizing her divorce from John Mulaney.
The 36-year-old artist discussed the highs and lows of the past year during a Harper’s Bazaar interview published on Tuesday, January 11, less than one week after Us Weekly confirmed she and the 39-year-old comedian reached a divorce settlement.
“I had a lot of bad days and medium days. I wouldn’t say I had any good days until the summer,” the Connecticut native told the outlet.
Us confirmed in May 2021 that Tendler and the former Saturday Night Live writer had called it quits after six years of marriage. At the time, the makeup artist wished her former spouse luck as he continued his recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. (The Oh, Hello star checked himself into a 60-day treatment program in December 2020.)
Days after news broke of the duo’s split, Us reported that Mulaney had moved on with Olivia Munn. The Big Mouth actor announced in September 2021 that the Newsroom alum, 41, was pregnant, and the pair’s son, Malcolm, arrived two months later.
While discussing the end of her marriage, Tendler seemingly hinted at her ex’s whirlwind path to fatherhood, telling Harper’s Bazaar, “Everything that has transpired has been totally shocking and I think surreal. In a way, I feel like, well, it can only go up from here, because I reached the depth of where I could go.”
The New York University alum spent much of the coronavirus pandemic in rural Connecticut maintaining a home she bought with Mulaney in June 2020.
“I do miss my friends, and I am aware that I’m maybe a little too young to be living in the middle of the woods by myself,” she said. “[But] I was able to create the space that, even as a child, I always wanted to live in.”
Tendler decorated the house with antique furniture, including her own refurbished Victorian lampshades, and a portrait of her French bulldog sits on a windowsill.
“This is just a painting of Petunia that someone who was a fan of John’s painted and then gave to him at a show,” she told the magazine. When asked whether the Chicago native would want the artwork for himself, Tendler replied, “I don’t think so.”
Mulaney, for his part, hasn’t opened up about his split at length. While fans continue to dissect his relationship with Munn, the New Girl alum explained why she wanted to keep the details more private.
“They think they know our relationship so well. When in reality, they don’t,” she told The Los Angeles Times in November 2021. “There’s no way anyone could know what any of his relationships were or what our relationship is. … If I try to say anything, I run the risk of being called messy or not telling the truth. The only way to win, for me, is to pull back and to not play the game at all. … For whatever reason, it’s easier to blame me.”