Olivia Munn may be silencing cynics about her surprising romance with comedian John Mulaney by posting joyful family photos of them with their new baby boy, Malcolm Hiệp Mulaney, born the day before Thanksgiving.
The Malcolm photos, showing Munn to be the picture of maternal bliss, may serve another purpose, making it hard to believe that the “Predator” actress was ever in a high-profile relationship with controversial Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Olivia Munn shares photo of John Mulaney cuddling their 'smooshiest' baby https://t.co/b9OBe4QaPp pic.twitter.com/H8GiRMVvHB
— Page Six (@PageSix) January 11, 2022
To some fans, the photos confirm that she “dodged a bullet” when she and Rodgers, 38, broke up in 2017 — given his stunning fall from grace in November when it was revealed he had lied about COVID-19 vaccination status.
Olivia Munn thinking “dodged a bullet there” about Aaron Rodgers as she prepares to co-parent with John Mulaney.
— Jillian (@JillianCardillo) November 6, 2021
Certainly, the ex-lovers are experiencing widely divergent starts to 2022.
Munn, 41, just released a new movie, “Violet,” which played on Netflix and garnered generally positive reviews. She also has Malcolm and seems to be happy in her relationship with Mulaney, 39.
The “Saturday Night Live” comedian doesn’t necessarily fit the more hunky, athletic profile of Rodgers and Munn’s other past boyfriends. He and Munn also have faced questions about the health of their romance, because he has been in and out of rehab for drug and alcohol addiction over the past year, and because their romance blossomed when he was ending his 7-year marriage to artist Anna Marie Tendler.
Meanwhile, Rodgers is said to be happily engaged to actor Shailene Woodley, although the two haven’t been seen together in public since their famous vacation to Maui last May with friends Miles Teller and his wife, Keleigh Sperry.
Things are even more intense for Rodgers professionally. The Packers are entering the play-offs for the Super Bowl, and he’s a top contender to be named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row.
But in the court of public opinion, this honor would be highly divisive. Up until November, Rodgers was one of America’s best known and most widely regarded sports stars. But after Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19, he gave an interview on “The Pat McAfee Show,” in which he went on a bizarre, anti-vaccination rant. The Chico-reared ex-star for the Cal Golden Bears became the butt of jokes and the object of national scorn, with a New York report accusing him of disseminating COVID misinformation.
Sports writers and fans say that Rodgers showed himself to be an arrogant, narcissistic crackpot with a persecution complex who railed against the “woke mob,” while boasting about getting his COVID treatment advice from conspiracy theorist podcaster, Joe Rogan.
https://twitter.com/Tucsonbelle/status/1480139934417698816
Following Rodgers’ rant, Woodley also came in for criticism for posting boasts about his penis size and other snarky comments in response to media coverage of his vaccination controversy. Rodgers and Woodley quickly lost their luster as one of America’s favorite new celebrity super couples.
Social media also was alight with comments from people wondering if Munn or Danica Patrick, Rodgers’ more recent ex-girlfriend, knew things about him that everyone else was just learning:
https://twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1456729720096231425
Others added that Rodgers’ outburst made them less angry about how Munn and Mulaney handled their relationship, specifically with regard to Tendler. Others said the Munn-Mulaney romance somehow made more sense:
just wanted to clarify that this was a thinly veiled joke about Olivia Munn and John Mulaney and what she was onto was that dumping Aaron Rodgers was the right decision
— Janna F. (@jannathepeanut) November 7, 2021
yo learning more about Aaron Rodgers and how long he was with olivia munn makes this whole john mulaney thing so much less confusing pic.twitter.com/NJCm4zKG63
— Abby Normal 🧠😷💉✨🦢 (@hoehning_it) November 6, 2021
Munn and Mulaney first sparked dating rumors in May 2021, the same month that his split from Tendler was was made public. The following September, he said on the “Late Night With Seth Meyers”: “In the spring, I went to Los Angeles, and met and started to date a wonderful woman named Olivia,” later adding, “and we are having a baby, together.”
Mulaney’s comments prompted fans to question the purported romance timeline, with people wondering if he was trying to cover for the possibility that he and Munn had begun seeing each other while he was still married to Tendler.
Munn tried to shoot down the controversy by telling the Los Angeles Times in November: “It’s definitely not foreign for me to have people speculate incorrectly about things and to have rumors run rampant in one way…They think they know our relationship so well. When in reality, they don’t. There’s no way anyone could know what any of his relationships were or what our relationship is.”
