Mindy Kaling might be famous enough to sell out her panel discussion at The New Yorker Festival earlier this month, but even she is occassionally mistaken for someone else.
A New York Times reporter spent the evening with the star and creator of "The Mindy Project" as she attended the New Yorker Festival earlier this month. While Kaling was greeted by fans asking for autographs and photos earlier in the night, once she arrived at the after-party at the Top of the Standard, one man confused Kaling for someone else.
“Congratulations on your Nobel Prize,” the man said to Kaling, according to the Times. He thought she was Malala Yousafzai, the 17-year-old Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Yousafzai had been announced as the co-recipient of the prize the night before the party, on Oct. 10.
According to the Times, the man commented on how well Kaling had recovered from her gunshot wounds from the Taliban in 2012. “Did he really think I’m Malala?” Kaling said to the Times reporter. "And that if I were, I’d be at the Boom Boom Room?"
The Malala connections didn't stop there though. New York Magazine was also at the event and asked attendees what they were doing at 17, since Yousafzai won the Nobel prize at that age. "I was, like, stressing out about getting into college, like a nerd," Kaling said to the magazine.
So yes, Kaling and Yousafzai are clearly very different people.
For more, head to The New York Times.
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