According to a just-published New York Times profile, the writer and actress, 35, was attending an after party for The New Yorker Festival on Oct. 11 when "a tipsy man in his 80s corned her and showered her with compliments."
One such compliment: "Congratulations on your Nobel Prize!"
The man when on to praise her bravery and impressive recover from Taliban gunshots. He had clearly mistaken Kaling for 17-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban only to recover and continue fighting for women's rights to education."Did he really think I'm Malala?" Kaling, who is of Indian decent, asked the NYT writer after the man had walked away. "And that if I were, I'd be at the Boom Boom Room? That's the best thing that's happened all night."
The Mindy Project star continued to take the insulting mixup lightly on Twitter when Today show co-host Willie Geist jokingly tweeted, "@MindyKaling, belated congrats on your Nobel Peace Prize! Well deserved, my friend. Fun NYT piece on Mindy explains."
