All About John Mulaney’s Parents, Ellen and Charles W. Mulaney Jr.

John Mulaney’s mom remembers him wanting to be a comedian since he was a child

John Mulaney’s parents, Ellen Mulaney and Charles W. Mulaney Jr., have provided an endless source of inspiration for his stand-up routines.

The Saturday Night Live alum’s mom and dad have been together since their days as law students. The pair attended Georgetown University and later graduated from Yale Law School. After marrying, they began different careers in law and eventually started a family, welcoming five children: Carolyn, Chip, John, Claire and Peter (the latter died at birth).

Growing up, John was close with his siblings. In the midst of their parents' strict Catholic household, they developed the same sense of humor, and Ellen recalls the group often bouncing lines off of one another before dinner. Even from a young age, John knew he wanted to be a comedian — although his parents weren't sure if it would become a reality.

“I think my mom was like, ‘This is something I always knew was gonna happen 'cause he’s been saying it since he was little, and now he’s really gonna do it. Okay, he’s really moving to New York, he’s gonna do it,’ ” John shared on The Off Camera Show.

While it took some time for his parents to accept that being a comedian was a viable career option, they are now in full support of his career, even if that means being a part of his stand-up act.

“I know by now that I’m known as John Mulaney’s mother,” Ellen told The Daily Northwestern in 2020. “I thought I was done being known as somebody’s mother, but not so. I think it’s fun.”

Here’s everything to know about John Mulaney’s parents, Ellen Mulaney and Charles W. Mulaney Jr.

They attended Georgetown University

Both Ellen and Charles received their undergraduate degrees from Georgetown University in 1971. Although it’s unknown if that’s when they met and began dating, the couple attended Yale Law School together and notably studied alongside a future president, Bill Clinton.

In a segment of his 2015 Netflix comedy special, The Comeback Kid, John explained that at the time, male students would often offer to walk unaccompanied female students back home if they were leaving the library alone late at night.

“My mom tells me that Bill Clinton would be out in front of the library every single night just being like, ‘Hey, can I walk you home?' " John recalled.

Ellen accepted his offer one night, and Clinton walked her to the dorms. According to John, his mom hoped it would spark a deeper conversation but it was only a brief encounter. Still, the moment left an impression on Ellen, who was dating Charles at the time.

Years later, she attended a fundraiser for Clinton’s presidency, and although Charles said Clinton wouldn’t remember her, the future president ended up picking out Ellen from a crowd and addressing her by name.

They work in law

After graduating with their juris doctor degrees in 1974, Ellen and Charles went on to work as lawyers.

According to his company bio, Charles first began as a law clerk in New York before joining a law firm in Chicago, where he is still today. He has worked at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates for several decades, focusing on “mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and corporate financings."

Meanwhile, Ellen began her career practicing "administrative, corporate and tax law at firms in Washington, D.C. and Chicago," per her Northwestern bio. She later became a coordinator of a joint child welfare ethics initiative organized by the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. In 2006, Ellen joined the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law as a senior lecturer.

Although her students didn’t initially know she was related to John, that all changed when she invited her famous son to appear via a Zoom call on the last day of class. In a 2020 interview with The Daily Northwestern, a former student revealed that John took questions from the class — making Ellen a popular professor.

“It also makes them more likely to laugh at my jokes,” she admitted to the outlet.

Charles has also been involved in education and is a member of the Corporate and Securities Law Institute of Northwestern University School of Law. In addition, he has spoken at the University of Chicago, Duke University and Northwestern University.

Ellen and Charles welcomed five children

After tying the knot, the pair welcomed five children. Before John’s birth in 1982, the couple first had a daughter, Carolyn, and a son, Chip, named after his father. Following John's birth, the family expanded again with his younger sister, Claire.

Then, when John was 4 years old, his mother became pregnant with his brother Peter. Unfortunately, the new baby “never came home from the hospital.” While the family struggled with his death, John says they spoke of Peter often and visited his gravesite.

“I didn’t feel like we were growing up in a house where something had been shattered, if that makes sense," John told Esquire in 2019. "We’d go to his cemetery every year. It was not, like, ‘You don’t mention that.’ But there was a tightness in the air."

Years later, John and Chip honored their late brother through their confirmation names in church. During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, John explained that Chip chose Peter while he selected Peter’s middle name, Martin.

They raised John and his siblings to be respectful

Ellen and Charles raised their children in a strict Catholic household, expecting them to be straight-laced and proper — which John later admitted was at times constricting.

Despite their high expectations for John and his siblings, though, he says there were still light-hearted moments, especially considering they all shared the same sense of humor.

“We were a good, uptight family, in a fifties way. There was a lot of fun and love. But a strictness," John told Esquire. "My parents were a tight unit ... I said something once, like, ‘Mom sucks!’ And my dad said, ‘That’s my wife.’ ”

He continued, “And I went to a very strict Jesuit high school, so there was always this, like, ‘Young man, your tie is not straightened.’ I remember once I said, ‘Yeah,’ and [Charles] turned to me and said, ‘The word is yes.’ ”

They didn’t know about John’s drinking as a teenager

Through the years, John has been open about addiction and his journey to sobriety after beginning to drink at the age of 13. As a teenager, he frequently drank and used drugs on the weekend, telling Esquire that he participated in these activities for "attention."

Looking back, the Big Mouth star said on The Off Camera Show that his parents were largely unaware of his partying tendencies because he became good at "keeping up appearances."

John shared that they "had an understanding of high school parties," and he would rush upstairs to his room after a night out.

Still, the comedian aimed to do well in school but admitted he would black out on the weekends.

"I was an uptight, wanted-to-get-good-grades, wanted-my-teacher-to-like-me person," he shared. "I was worried about day-to-day life. ... And then on the weekends would drink like Keith Moon and take Ambien to see what it would do.”

After becoming sober at age 23 in 2005, he relapsed in 2020 and checked into rehab for 60 days, PEOPLE reported. Since then, John has credited Olivia Munn and their son, Malcolm, for helping him while starting over.

More recently, the comedian also apologized to his dad after Charles admitted that he was afraid of losing John to his addictions.

“I’m sorry you were so scared," John said during an appearance on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman. “Well, it’s a normal, loving reaction,” Charles responded.

Ellen and Charles were hesitant about John becoming a comedian

For much of John’s life, he told his parents he wanted to pursue a career in entertainment as an actor or comedian. Ellen revealed that they were initially hesitant about his plans, understanding how hard it was to succeed in the field.

When he was a teenager, John recalled his dad asking him to elaborate on his goals because he couldn't grasp the concept.

"He went, ‘You’ve been saying you want to be a comedian. What does that mean? You want to be like Steve Martin? ... What would that be? I don’t understand what that is,' " he said on The Off Camera Show. "I don’t think he was putting it down, but I don’t know if he wasn't putting it down as a non-serious thing."

The topic came up again around the time John was graduating from Georgetown University. Ellen recalled Charles asking John if he was sure about career aspiration — to which John asked if his father would be more proud of him if he were an “investment banker or bond trader.”

With that, his parents began accepting that his dream was in the comedy world.

“He just loved performing and he was pretty good at it. He seemed pretty confident that that was what he was interested in,” Ellen told The Daily Northwestern.

Once John began to succeed, their fears for his future were alleviated, with Ellen noting, “I was like, ‘OK, we were right — he’s really funny.’ ”

John often mentions his parents in his stand-up routines

Since rising to fame as a comedian, John has brought up his parents in his stand-up act. While Ellen has said that he never explicitly asked for their permission to be featured, nearly all the stories he tells are accurate.

“He never crosses the line — most of what he says is 95 percent true,” Ellen shared with The Daily Northwestern. “For the most part ... as comedians go, he’s pretty clean, which we’re also happy about.”

He has particularly characterized Charles as a no-nonsense figure, joking that he used his background as a lawyer and debate team champion to “pick [him and his siblings] apart psychologically.”

In his Netflix special The Comeback Kid, John recounted Charles driving their family to Wisconsin. After spotting a McDonald's, the kids started cheering as Charles pulled into the drive-thru, only to be disappointed when he ordered a coffee for himself and nothing else.

"As mad as that made me as a little kid, in retrospect, that is the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life," John said. "How perfect is that? He had a vanload of little kids, and he got black coffee. The one thing from McDonald’s no child could enjoy.”

At the end of the segment, John joked that his dad was “cold-blooded” and his hero. “My dad loved us. He just didn’t care about our general happiness or self-esteem,” he quipped.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.