Ali Wong's 2 Kids: All About Mari and Nikki

Ali Wong has two children with her ex-husband Justin Hakuta

Ali Wong's two daughters are the inspiration behind her 2019 New York Times bestselling book Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life.

The comedian and her ex-husband, Justin Hakuta, welcomed two daughters over the course of their eight-year marriage: Mari, 8, and Nikki, 6. The Beef star was famously pregnant with her children during her 2016 and 2018 Netflix comedy specials Baby Kobra and Hard Knock Wife, which helped spring the comedian into stardom.

Related: Who Is Ali Wong's Ex-Husband? All About Justin Hakuta

Following the success of her first comedy special, Wong was offered a book deal, but she didn't have any ideas to pursue as a topic until she remembered a sweet act by her late father, Adolphus Wong, who died in 2011 from cancer. This letter inspired her to write the book in the form of letters dedicated to her own daughters, as she later shared during an October 2019 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

"I remembered my dad had written me this letter that started with 'Dear Alexandra' before he passed away and it was reflecting on our relationship," Wong told Ellen DeGeneres. "It was really sweet, but it was short and I wish he had written more. And after he passed, it was too late to ask him all of these questions about who he was before he became my dad and he grew up really poor and I only knew him as this successful anesthesiologist."

Wong said that her father had to overcome "a lot of obstacles and failure" in his life, adding, "I really wanted to talk a lot about that with him, especially at that time but it was too late and he had already passed away."

"My girls, they only know me after I filmed those specials with them in utero, so they don't know everything that I went through to get to where I am and I think it's really important," she continued.

In addition to her daughters serving as the inspiration for her book, motherhood has given Wong plenty of material to draw on in her comedy, and she has been very candid about her parenting experiences through the years — though she never jokes about her daughters specifically.

She has also discussed whether Mari and Nikki will follow in her footsteps and pursue comedy themselves.

Keep reading to learn more about Ali Wong's two kids.

Mari Hakuta, 8

Wong's older daughter, Mari, was born in November 2015 via cesarean section. The comedian was pregnant with Mari in her first Netflix comedy special Baby Kobra. In a May 2018 interview with the New York Times, the Always Be My Maybe star joked that she was worried her then-husband wouldn't love their child. Wong decided to give her daughter a Japanese first name, as her ex is half-Japanese and half-Filipino, as well as Hakuta's surname.

"There's not a lot of sign of me in her name," she explained. "And I think subconsciously I did that to try and ensure he would love her."

In her 2019 book, Wong was candid about her pregnancy with her first child, writing about the health condition she was diagnosed with called intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). She said she found out the news when she was 30 weeks pregnant and learned from her doctors that her baby "wasn't growing enough."

"Apparently, there was some blood flow resistance in the umbilical cord from the placenta to Mari," she wrote. "It was unsafe for her to stay in my womb past thirty-seven weeks at the very latest, and my obstetrician explained that she would get better nutrition outside rather than staying inside."

After Mari was born, Wong wrote in her book about her attempt to be a stay-at-home mom for Mari, which lasted only eight weeks. "Mari was so easy and chill, and still at the end of the day I was completely exhausted. The little things just took a lot out of me," she penned.

Following the birth of her younger daughter, Nikki, Wong spoke about how Mari was adjusting to being a big sister during an April 2018 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The Beef actress said that just three months into having a younger sister, Mari was "very jealous at first."

"When the new baby came, my toddler wanted to be a baby all over again," Wong explained. "Having a 2-year-old is really hard. I feel like I'm in a relationship with an emotionally unstable woman who is also physically abusive and never gets in trouble for it. She kicked me in the neck today for rationing her Thin Mint intake. So anytime you see pictures of us smiling, it's lies."

Wong told DeGeneres that she was happy with her decision to have two kids and would not have any more children, explaining, "I love being a mom and I like having two kids. But I've had two C-sections and I've suffered enough."

"That's my favorite mantra when it comes to motherhood: I have suffered enough," she added. "Whenever I feel mom-guilt or feel pressured to be a better mom, to cook salmon on a bed of quinoa for my kids, I just think to myself, 'I have suffered enough.' And then I feel fine about feeding my toddler a bag of chips for dinner."

While Wong later told DeGeneres that she didn't want her daughters to be comedians because of the safety factor, she did talk about some of the funniest things Mari has done during an October 2019 interview with TIME.

"It's hard to describe how funny this is but when my oldest daughter was maybe 1½, she did this thing where she would fart and immediately she'd look at me and say, 'No,' " Wong said. "And it was serious. She wouldn't laugh or anything. But her timing was so good. She would catch it right at the tail end of the fart where she would be like, 'No.'"

Nikki Hakuta, 6

Wong welcomed her younger daughter, Nikki, in December 2017. Wong was pregnant with Nikki during her second Netflix special, Hard Knock Wife. She deliberately chose to have her daughters close in age due to the "painful" age gap between her siblings as the youngest of four kids.

"They were all ten to fifteen years older than I was and had lived a whole different life as a family of five before I was born," she wrote in Dear Girls. "There are framed pictures of them, all on skis. By the time I was born, my parents weren't hitting the slopes; they were hitting the Metamucil."

As a mom of two, Wong has both of her daughters in tow as she tours the country for her standup. In an April 2019 interview with Vanity Fair, it was reported that the comedian traveled with Mari and Nikki, Hakuta and either a nanny or her relatives throughout her Milk & Money tour. This way, in each city, the family was able to enjoy the area, including partaking in various kid-friendly activities, such as trips to a museum or science center. Once the kids went to sleep, Wong hit the stage for her show.

Today, Wong continues to bring her daughters with her on tour. During a March 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she explained, "Taking kids on the road is so beautiful. It's the opposite of film and television where I'm just gone all day.

"It's a really fun family adventure because basically at night I'm performing, and then during the day, we go on adventures to the children's museum or the gardens or we see family friends," she added. "It's really cool that they've seen so much of America."

While Wong often joked about Hakuta during her standup routines and was pregnant during her 2016 and 2018 Netflix specials, she purposefully doesn't tell jokes about her daughters while on stage.

"I do feel like I'd have to get their permission, and they're 5 and 7; they still don't fully understand what I do," she told the outlet. "And also, there was a lot to complain about when they were infants and it was so hard, but now it's so corny because I love them so much and love spending time with them, and anything I would complain about would feel cliché and contrived."

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