MK

Mindy Kaling has beauty, brains and smashing success. Now, join us on our mission to find her Mr. Right and make the rom-com happy ending of her dreams come true!

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The Mystery of Brenda Withers

I wasn't going to go there but really, I can't help it anymore. What more do I have to lose - I've already been shunned. I know Mindy won't appreciate this one bit but I've been wondering about this for a while now. 


Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers

Mindy fans know how she got her big-break alongside her college best friend, Brenda Withers:
In August 2002, Kaling portrayed Ben Affleck in an off Broadway play called Matt & Ben,[17] which she co-wrote with her best friend from college, Brenda Withers—who played Matt Damon. The play was named one of Time magazine's "Top Ten Theatrical Events of The Year," was "a surprise hit" at the 2002 New York International Fringe Festival.[3] Initially, Withers and Kaling had "for their own entertainment, mockingly pretend to be the best friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck; that pretending spawned “Matt & Ben”, the goofy play that reimagined how Damon and Affleck came to write the movie Good Will Hunting."[3]  (Wikipedia)

In 2006, Brenda did have a brief guest stint on an episode of The Office, the memorable "Booze Cruise."

As of 2011, they were still tight. Mindy not only discussed her BFF Brenda in her book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), there were pics included of them evidencing their best friendship. Mindy also thanked Brenda in the acknowledgments. 

I'm pretty sure I saw a pic of them at an awards show together back in the day because Mindy had brought Brenda as her guest (maybe the one below?).



Brenda's acting credits on IMDb end after a stint on Law & Order in 2010. In 2011, she was acting in a play and in 2013 and 2015 also. So it doesn't seem Brenda has abandoned acting.

All of this brings me to the obvious - Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers are no longer best friends. Even if they maintain a pretense at a friendship, or they choose not to comment publicly on the dissolution of their friendship, there is no way they are really best friends anymore. 

More rabid Mindy fans may be outraged by my assertion. But, if you exploded into stardom and had your own network television show which is now continuing for its fourth season on Hulu, and said show featured guest stars all the time, would you not cast your struggling actress BFF on even one episode, forget creating a recurring role?

Yea. Exactly. I rest my case.

I'd love to know what happened between Mindy and Brenda but we'll probably never find out. They seem way too private to expose these vulnerabilities to the media. Even if they're both perfectly fine with things as they are, as an outsider I find it kind of sad. I'm guessing it's not what they envisioned as kids when they shared their dreams of making it some day and it must suck for Brenda to feel left behind, even if Mindy has legit reasons for moving on without her. 

Mindy, is there no room for forgiveness? For making amends? Maybe not. Just wondering. 

UPDATE - I called it!

OMG EVEN BETTER UPDATE (2017)!! - Read my reply to (Mindy's???) comment on this post "Why Mindy Blocked Us On Instagram."


19 comments:

  1. I was reading Mindys' new book this week and noticed a huge gaping lack of Brenda mentions but a ton of Jocelyn. I know she used to have a Twitter and IG bc I used to follow Brenda on Twitter. But now, there's no social media anywhere. Obviously a major fallout. Sad.

    Also, I found your account bc of your BrendaWithers hashtag. Nice clip!

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    1. Dear Abby Mae,
      You noticed it too! My next Why Not Me? post was going to revisit BW for the same reasons you mentioned. Thank you for commenting and glad you found this site.

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    2. Haha just visited your profile and enjoyed reading it. My inner fat kid is giving me Type 2 Diabetes.

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  2. Actually googled Brenda Withers and Mindy Kaling friendship to find out the real score. Haha I also had a feeling they had a fallout. No mention on the new book, nothing on Mindy's social media to indicate that she's still around. It's all Jocelyn and weren't the three of them flatmates before?

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    1. Yes, the three were besties/roommates after college and now, no mention of Brenda although social media shows Mindy & Jocelyn are still BFFs. Thanks for commenting Priyanka!

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  3. Brenda is Hott. I'll be her friend!

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  4. (Disclaimer - I'm a huge fan of Brenda Withers and of her character on "The Office", as you're about to read) I will refrain from commenting on Mindy and Brenda's friendship, because it's none of my business, and I know many people will hate me for saying this, but...I'm 100% sincere. I think that Brenda not "exploding into stardom" and Mindy not helping her get more famous...is a blessing in disguise. Brenda Withers is, without a hint of exaggeration, one of my heroes. She's very down-to-earth - humble, genuine, an artist who enjoys her art with a burning passion that is incredibly inspiring to see. I am not a fan of Hollywood, I've seen what its fame does to people, time and time again (I have a relative who's a talented singer, and, just like Brenda, doesn't get nearly as much praise as she deserves) and I believe that it more or less...devours real talent and replaces it with soulless commercialism. To put it in a few words, Brenda is too pure of heart to be a Hollywood actress. As for Mindy - I wish her well, but I don't like where stuff is going with her. Ocean's 8 was a...so-so movie, in my opinion - just like the 2016 Ghostbusters, it was a tasteless "genderswap" version of something that already existed (I'll probably get eaten alive for saying that, just like James Rolfe). If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't get me wrong, I like Mindy's acting, but the whole concept was flawed. You want a movie with strong female characters? Build it from the ground up, instead of re-purposing some already existing franchise with dudes in it. I don't mind seeing strong females, in fact...I'll give you an example, with Brenda. Her character in "The Office", though incredibly minor, almost as if Mindy let her act in it like a cameo, of sorts...was, mildly put, phenomenal. Brenda Matlowe, the character from "Booze Cruise", is, in my opinion, THE BEST strong, introverted female character I've ever seen (and it was her that introduced me to Withers). She's realistic, she doesn't feel like a negative stereotype, and she's so...human, that she outright reminded me of women, friends of mine in real life, that bear resemblance to her - personality-wise. She did, in a single episode - in which she doesn't even appear a whole lot, more than some characters do in an entire movie - as main characters. As an introvert myself, she's my hands-down favorite minor character in the series and I really wished we would've seen more of her on that show. So...really, in a nutshell...on the one hand, I think Brenda doesn't get as much fame as she deserves, but on the other, in that same breath - I think it's for the better. She's got talent and it would be a sin to waste it by putting it in an environment where it cannot thrive. Beautiful flowers tend to be picky about the soil they grow on.

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    1. Thank you for your comments! I love that people like you take the time to read and comment on this site so thoughtfully. I enjoyed reading your perspective. I also would have liked to have seen more of Brenda on the Office! I also didn't love Mindy's role in Ocean's 8, although it was impressive that she was part of that ensemble. I just wish they had done more with her character, and the overall story was lackluster. Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts!

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  5. I'm fascinated by Mindy, so will have to read more here, but I found this blog by asking what happened to Brenda Withers, too? She was a major part of Mindy's success!

    I remember her from Booze cruise, too - she has a very distinctive face, and I won't say she was the most impressive walk-on, but she definitely made an impression - and a good foil for Michael Scott.

    Sad, indeed, when good friends break up.

    PS Is BJ the father of her kid?

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    1. Thanks for following, Donna! Nice to see your comment on here.
      I doubt that BJ is the father though I wouldn't know...

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  6. You people need to get your own lives for Pete’s sake. Friends move on from each other, their lives go in different paths. It happens to EVERYONE.

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    1. Lol - awesome to see comments like this 5 years after the original post. Thanks for reading!

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  7. Just saw this today, almost a decade after the original post. Mindy discussed on a morning show a few years back the heartbreak of breaking up with a good friend who she realized was trying to use her to Hollywood-climb. This is clearly about Brenda. Mindy has had a lot of well-deserved success and I always look forward to everything she does.

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    2. So cool to see people discovering this blog after all this time! Thank you for your comment and for sharing the tidbit about the morning show interview!

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