Nev Schulman’s Baby Is Coming Any Day Now — The 'Catfish' Star and His Wife Open Up (Exclusive)
Updated Dec. 14 2018, 3:44 p.m. ET
Congratulations are in order for Catfish host Nev Schulman and his wife as their second baby's arrival is just around the corner. In an exclusive interview with Distractify, Nev and his wife Laura Perlongo, discussed their excitement, possible baby names, and their first-born's reaction to the news of a baby brother.
Nev, 34, who's known primarily for popularizing the dating term "catfish" after his autobiographical 2010 documentary and the MTV show that bear the same name, met Laura, 31, — where else? — on the internet.
And the couple tied the knot last summer, following the birth of daughter Cleo, now 2. "We're excited," Laura, a guest host on Nev's show, tells Distractify exclusively, about their second-biggest collaboration yet, the brand new baby boy they're set to welcome in just weeks.
"He's getting very big inside my body," says a 36-week pregnant Laura, trying to mentally calculate the days to count down before his arrival. "I don't know what that is, eight and half? Nine?" she wonders before her attentive husband jumps in. "He's almost ready, probably two to four more weeks," he says.
"He's in the 'keep warm setting', I think now, basically," gushes the future dad of Baby Boy Schulman. And Cleo James, who served as the flower girl for the couple's wedding, is also impatiently awaiting the delivery date, though she's not certain what's being delivered just yet.
"Cleo doesn't know she's getting a baby brother," says Nev when I ask him whether Cleo's ready to take on the role of a big sister, "I think she just thinks it's a birthday cake that we're baking inside of Laura's belly." Which makes sense, given the "bun in the oven" picture she was made to pose for back in August, which garnered an impressive 31,000 likes.
But Cleo seems up to the task, and has already proven herself as quite the role model, her mom tells me. "She's sweet to the belly and stuff, she'll kiss it and sometimes she'll sing him songs, it's pretty cute," she says of Cleo's affection, but Nev thinks there's another reason for her loving excitement.
According to the Catfish star, Cleo thinks she's about to meet "the baby from the movie Boss Baby" for the very first time. "That's what we tell her a lot," he explains, "that she's going to get her own boss baby." But unlike the movie she adores, Cleo's own boss baby will likely not be named Ted.
The tight-lipped couple revealed a lot about their name preferences during our conversation, and even intimated they had one name "that we kind of think wouldn't be super offensive" chosen out.
"We've got a first name that we really like, but pairing it with a middle name has been a real challenge," revealed the MTV star. The couple explain that James is Cleo's second name, which "has a substantial meaning" in Laura's family.
I have to admit that Cleo James has a delightful ring to it, and the couple is struggling to find a two-pronged name that will carry the same musicality for their second-born. "What's going to sound good but also be meaningful to us?" they wonder aloud.
And though they're currently only struggling with the second part of their son's moniker, coming up with his first name was no walk in the park either. "It's hard nowadays, especially in New York City," Nev tells me, because "all the cool names are taken."
"You drop your kid off at school and every kid is name Bowie or Ada, Ava, Ace — there's like six names that everyone is using," he says. Laura is wrapping her mind around the fact that names aren't as traditional, or easy to come up with, as they used to be.
"I meet a lot of girls who have names that are traditionally boys' and vice versa, which is great. I love that it's happening, it just makes naming a kid hard because there's no restriction," she mulls. "It used to be, you know, pick from these seven names. Now you can name your kid 'Apple' or 'Wall'," she humorously mentions.
And if Cleo James name sounds original and out of the ordinary to you, they're definitely staying outside the box for their baby boy's name. "Because I have a normal name," Laura tells me, "I suppose I want something that I never had, which is a more unique name."
Maybe a Nev Jr. is in the works? "I keep it a secret," says Laura when I try to pry about the name they've settled on. "We didn't tell anyone Cleo's name until after. Our parents, everyone wants to know but everyone has to wait," she says, before her husband Nev reveals the real reason they're being so hush-hush.
"We don't want to tell people and have them steal it and then name their kids before our kid and it's like, we get scooped," he explains.