Wait, Did John Mulaney Divorce Anna Marie Tendler Because She Didn't Want Kids?

After six years of marriage, comedian John Mulaney and wife Anna Marie Tendler announced they were getting divorced in May 2021. John was the one who chose to end their marriage.

That same month, the Saturday Night Live alum became romantically linked to actress Olivia Munn. Fans were taken aback by how quickly he moved on, and even more stunned when he revealed in September 2021 that he and Olivia were expecting a child together.

Their son, Malcolm Hiệp Mulaney, was born in November 2021 — for those trying to do the math on this, the timeline of Malcolm's birth does suggest that he may have been conceived while John and Anna were still together.

Now while John appears to be embracing fatherhood, it seems his ex-wife is making her own plans to start a family. But did Anna always imagine herself as a mother? Let’s discuss!

On Feb. 28, Anna shared a cryptic photo to Instagram, where a woman with long brown hair is seen stripped down to her underwear and injecting a needle into her stomach. Her face is not shown, but judging by the hair, petite frame, and the fact that Anna mostly shares self-portraits on Instagram, we can likely assume that the woman is Anna.

"Eggs, over easy," the caption read. She also added the hashtag "#roomsinthefirsthouse,” to note that this picture was part of her art series of the same name. Based on the caption and place of injection, it appears that she was giving herself hormonal injections in order to prepare her body for egg freezing.

Shortly after sharing the intimate moment, Anna reposted it to her Instagram Story and explained that she “would like to clear up a common misnomer” about her work.

"This is not a photo diary. I am never commenting on any one thing. I am rarely posting photos chronologically," she wrote, noting the photo might not be recent. She continued to urge her followers to view it as art, and not just a snippet from her personal life. "I am a fine artist. These are standalone works that speak to the female experience at large. My life has been filled with a million experiences that are mined to create a body of work that is about something bigger than me," she said.

During his marriage to Anna, John had written jokes about how they weren't interested in having kids.

"Our real estate agent wanted us to have a baby more than anyone else in our lives. More than anyone else in our family. She hinted about it constantly. Every room we'd walk into, she'd be like, 'So this could be an office ... or maybe a nursery,'" he joked in his 2015 special The Comeback Kid.

But given the fact that John became a dad months after splitting from Anna, it hints that their decision to not start a family together might have been more one-sided.

In January 2022, Anna spoke with Bazaar about her work and her new lens on life post-divorce. She explained that she personally “always held partnership above having kids." She didn't elaborate on whether John also shared that view.

Surprisingly though, she also told the outlet that she planned to freeze her eggs. “There were things I never even thought about before because that was just a closed door. So now that it feels like not as much of a closed door, it’s something that I ruminate on a lot,” she explained, gently suggesting that she may have had a change of heart.

Anna's interview with Bazaar was published roughly six weeks before she shared her injection photo.

It's likely that the photo was taken during that period. It's unclear if watching John become a father in the public eye had any impact on her decision to look at her own childbearing options. It's also unknown why John decided to end their marriage.

Two days before Anna the photo, John hosted SNL and gushed over his newborn son.