College is, essentially, a country club occupied by aging teenagers who have the mental capacity to understand stem cells and Sartre but lack the emotional capacity to talk to each other while sober. Mindy Kaling’s new HBO Max show The Sex Lives of College Girls understands this. Our heroines go to frat parties and emerge depressed, their sweaters saturated with pumpkin ale. They get friend-dumped. They fail to turn in problem sets. They have mediocre sex under dorm room posters of Seth Meyers.

Let’s call the title—The Sex Lives of College Girls—what it is: porny. I had a job in college that required me to teach freshman girls how to, in a pinch, convert a condom into a dental dam, and I still think that name is a bit much. But this is less Girls Gone Wild and more Socrates and Sexuality. Or: Tarts of the Liberal Arts. Yes, we hit the classics: keg stands, red cups, a “naked party.” But the show also covers, in an un-gritty, cheery way, things that actually happen in college. Our heroines get laid, but they also lay out rules about who has to clean their shared mini fridge. They hook up, but they also get hooked on new ideas and experiences. There’s intercourse, but there’s also discourse about wealth inequality. You get it!

We follow four roommates sharing a dorm during their first year at an elite New England college. Here a creator less interesting than Kaling would have introduced a quartet of stereotypes (the cheerleader! the nerd!). Instead we get Bela (Amrit Kaur): wildly horny but essentially a virgin, ambitious but not in the way her immigrant parents want her to be. She’s joined by Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott), a soccer star and senator’s daughter who’s been having good sex with terrible power dynamics. Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) is a small-town girl from Arizona who is simultaneously the show’s kindest and most overtly feminist character and also its most racist. And then there’s Leighton (Renee Rapp), who seems like a mean-girl cliché (Rapp also starred as Regina George in Mean Girls on Broadway) but reveals herself to be something much more interesting.

So which one is the fun, slutty character? Twist: They’re all fun, and they all like sex. Kimberly does what Leighton calls “grunt-y novice boinking.” Bela dumps a guy because he’s too into her sense of humor (What? Does he not appreciate her hot body???). Kimberly, Whitney, and Bela eye-fuck Leighton’s brother Nico (Gavin Leatherwood), a boy with “a face you could write songs about.” There’s a tender, poignant queer storyline. There’s also a storyline that I really, really think the writers should have reconsidered, in which a character exchanges sexual favors to get ahead in a male-dominated field. (Like, sure, I guess that could happen, but the comedy doesn’t land—mostly, women in male fields just deal with harassment and discrimination.)

It seems like you’ve been working in the arts your whole life. Have you ever had a break?

I took a two-year break in college where I was just studying politics—I did political studies and became obsessed with comparative politics. I studied theater and politics at Bard, I double-majored. It was very different theater than what I had been seeing and performing growing up. I was at the School of American Ballet as a child, so it was very rigorous professional training. I was used to classically structured theater, and then all of a sudden it’s like: A man walks across the stage, and that’s theater. And I’m like, “No, it’s not.” Then little by little I’m like, “Oh, no—it is.” But I didn’t have a lot of success in theater at Bard—I auditioned for all the shows, never got into them.

How did you start directing your own work?

I just wanted things to be getting done, so I was like, “Well, I’ll just make them.” That’s how directing came to me. I just came up with these stories, and then I’d be like, “Let’s get some friends in there, or I’ll do it and have a friend shoot it, and I’ll run back and forth from the monitor.” It really came from this desire to try and be in control, which is ultimately an anxiety thing because you don’t ever have that much control over anything! I was like, “Okay, if I have the story in my head, how do I make it?” That was kind of the work of directing.

I want to learn more about what my vision is as a director. I know the stories I want to tell, but what are my beliefs about directing? Do I believe that there is something such as female storytelling? Or is it just that we need to create more nuance? I don’t know, I don’t have those answers yet.

Was it hard not having control, not being a director, when it came to this show?

When I got to Sex Lives of College Girls, it was nuts! It was such a big boat. A part of me loved it because I was like, “Wow, I can just do this work. I show up, and you guys are going to do the rest.” At the same time that’s kind of scary because I’m really aware of all the work that goes on behind and that means I don’t know what’s going to happen with the work I’m giving you. It was a good exercise in control and having to let go.

We had a bit of a hiatus [after filming] the pilot and I was like, “Oh, my God, what am I doing?” So I called a friend and said, “What do you think of making a short, just in the apartment? I have really cool bathrooms, so we need to find something that features the bathrooms.” She was like, “Let’s do it.” I made another short film on the hiatus! I couldn’t stand not doing anything.

It’s giving classic Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress! It’s giving Greek muse in Hercules! It’s giving bridesmaids toasting with champagne in matching Etsy robes! It’s Mindy Kaling’s exam gown at a mammogram appointment, and it is serving. 

If you’ve never sat alone in a doctor’s office styling your exam robe, taking a furtive selfie, and praying the door doesn’t swing open, well, you should try it. Never have I ever taken a selfie at a gynecologist appointment that was unflattering. On Thursday, October 21, Kaling posted an iconic example of this extremely specific genre of self-portraiture. She captioned the pic: “Feeling cute in my annual mammogram robe! Last year a lot of women missed their yearly mammogram, hopefully you can make an appointment to get checked. It’s so important. Tag me in your mammogram pic and you KNOW I’m gonna comment.” 

Kaling has millions of followers on social media, so it’s a big deal for her to promote mammograms—x-rays that can catch breast cancer early—and offer an incentive to fans to get them. In a study of over 1,300 people published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 41% said they skipped out on medical care during the first months of the pandemic. Now more than ever, it’s important to listen to healthcare professionals. When the medical assistant says, “Please put on your gown, the doctor will be in to see you soon,” you should treat the word “gown” literally. And as Kaling shows, the very best selfies are taken in gynecology offices and breast cancer screening rooms. Pink flatters all. This is a versatile look that you can wear to a picnic, the office, brunch with friends, a date-night…the list goes on. 

You should get a breast exam every 1-3 years between the ages of 25 and 39, and a mammogram every year or two after you turn 40, according to Planned Parenthood. Other great opportunities for a gown photo opp: an STI check! A mole screening! An annual physical! Plenty of people skipped doctors appointments during the height of the pandemic out of safety concerns, but the JAMA study showed that significant numbers skipped their appointments for financial reasons. If you have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, mammograms are covered every two years for women after the age of 50. And Planned Parenthood and other women’s health clinics offer reduced rates as needed, including for people who do not have health insurance. (This is one of the many, many ways Planned Parenthood saves lives.) 

Scroll down the responses to Mindy Kaling’s tweet, and you will be treated to a parade of looks—women in hot pinks and Pepto Bismols, semi-sheer fabrics, deep-Vs, and high slits. There are stories from cancer survivors and mammogram newbies, gratitude and grief and cheerful grumbling. There is language for breasts that runs from “tatas” to “boobs” to “sloppy bags.”  

All of it is perfect. Let this be a new trend—our Instagram explore pages should just be women taking selfies as they wait for their doctor to come back in. With this, I begin to pull together my makeup look my upcoming yearly wellness exam. 

There really is only one question left: Could you use a speculum as a claw clip? 

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter. 

Mindy Kaling keeps her personal life pretty private, but she did decide to honor her son Spencer’s first birthday with an adorable Instagram post. And of course he’s the cutest thing ever.

The Never Have I Ever creator posted a pic of her baby boy facing away from the camera and looking at balloons. (Kaling’s daughter, Katherine, has also only appeared in photos with her face obscured for privacy). The Office star wrote in the caption, “Friday was my son Spencer’s first birthday. My daughter Kit is pretty cautious with new people. Not this guy. If you happen to make eye contact with Spencer, he lights up like you are old war buddies and he makes a beeline to you. I had Spencer during Covid and it was a strange isolated time, but the instant I saw him I knew he would make everything better. And he did! Happy birthday, Spike!”

Casual nickname reveal! Spike Kaling is just about the coolest name I could possibly think of.

Sweet messages immediately poured in from Kaling’s friends, including a “Happy Birthday” from Oscar winner Octavia Spencer. (Wait…is Spencer named after Octavia Spencer? Let’s go with it! Sure! Why not?) “Awwww!! Happy Birthday! ” Angela Kinsey wrote. (She played Angela on The Office.) 

Mindy Kaling has previously revealed that downtime during her pandemic pregnancy was “a real gift,” telling People, “I felt really scrutinized during my first pregnancy and I think that it was such a joy to spend the last seven months of my pregnancy under the cover of just nobody was out, nobody was taking photos.”

I totally understand, but I personally wouldn’t mind seeing a few more pics of her kids—if she has any adorable ones lying around and feels comfortable sharing, of course. I love cute babies; sue me!

Mindy Kaling has figured out a way to get more than 24 hours out of her day. At least that’s how it seems given the actor-producer-writer-director has one of the busiest professional lives on the planet and a three-year-old and a six-month-old at home. Sleep is precious—if not scarce these days. “With my daughter, I obviously went through the whole thing of waking up every three hours to feed her,” Kaling says. “But what they say is true: You completely forget about that when you have another kid. I’m in the midst of that now [with my son].” 

The result is that Kaling has gotten intimately familiar with what she calls the “murder zone.” “I’ve decided that the worst time I have to wake up and set the alarm is the one that’s between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.,” Kaling says. “It’s not the midnight to 3 a.m. time, which for whatever reason is fine. That feels like I’m in college—we stayed up late, we’ll go into the diner. But the 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. time is like the murder zone. Nothing good is happening at that time. It is the time when people get murdered. Waking up is like being ripped from the womb of sleep.”

Between the murderous 3 a.m. feedings and the fatigue-inducing effects of the pandemic we’re all coping with, Kaling has developed a new appreciation for rest. “We’re all in this paradoxical thing, which is that we have more time at home, but our sleep is worse because we’re all dealing with more low-level anxiety,” she says. To cope, she’s cutting stressors out of her life, and one way she is doing that is by partnering with myWalgreens to streamline her wellness experience. “I’m really choosy about who I do partnerships with, but honestly, I couldn’t have found one more uniquely suited to my needs,” she says. “I’m loving the pharmacy chat on the app—it’s been really a godsend for me and it’s been helping me mind my health and the health of my kids and give me more of a focus on wellness in an easy way.”

For more easy ways to focus on wellness, we asked Kaling how she gets a good night’s rest—even when she has to wake up during the murder zone.

The pillows that help me sleep…and work

I am one of those people who have about a million pillows on my bed because I do 95% of my writing from bed. Whether I’m writing a screenplay or writing essays or whatever it is, I don’t want to be leaning on the pillow that I sleep on. So I need there to be all these other big buffer pillows, these oversized, overstuffed pillows that I’m leaning on, that don’t mimic my sleep experience at all. I have a Tempur-Pedic pillows I sleep on and then I have like a silky black pillow that looks like a small black cat when it’s laying on my bed, but it’s actually a pillow by Nurse Jamie that I use for beauty. I bring that with me on planes or when I go to the hospital.

The nighttime skin-care product I can’t live without

I have two. One is my Clarisonic brush. If I don’t use it, I feel like I can’t get off every little tiny bit of makeup on my skin.

And the other I use religiously at nighttime is the Joanna Vargas rejuvenating serum, which is this super-hyper-moisturizing serum that goes on underneath moisturizer. I feel like my skin just eats it up the whole night, and in the morning my pores look smaller. I feel like any acne I might’ve had has gone away.

The pajamas that keep me comfy

I wear a lot of Bedhead pajamas. I love their jersey, man. I kinda can’t handle the 100% cotton with no stretch—I need that jersey stretch in my pajamas.

The perfect weighted blanket

I’m just getting into weighted blankets. I have one from Bearaby and I really do like it. If it’s too heavy, I feel like I’m dying in my bed, so it has to be exactly the right amount of weight.

What’s currently on my nightstand

A box of tissues. A picture of my dad with my daughter. A bottle of water. A lamp. And a book called The Lowland.

My secret to looking rested after sleeping on a plane

A truly annoying thing about me is that I can sleep instantly on any plane, any train, any car. I just love motion; I think it really helps me sleep. But I was on a plane once and saw a female celebrity that I know wearing this sheet mask—she looked insane, and I was, like, kind of silently judging her, but then when we got off the eight-hour flight, she looked like exquisite. I was like, “Are you wearing any makeup?” And she was like, “No, I just did my mask.” And so now I take a Joanna Vargas mask with me.

For many years, Legally Blonde 3 was just a dream held by fans of the first two Reese Witherspoon films about a California sorority girl who conquers Harvard Law School and Washington, D.C. But every once in a while, dreams do, indeed, come true.

“I think it would be cool,” Witherspoon said on Fashionably Late With Rachel Zoe in October 2015. “I think we’re ready to see Elle and see what she’s up to lately. A lot of writers over the years have come up with different ideas for it. I actually think it’s kind of great right now because we’re talking about women in politics and how important that is to get more women. And I think it’d be kind of a cool thing to have her be a Supreme Court justice or somebody who runs for office, president.” Then, in 2017, she kept hope alive. “We’ve thought about it,” she told E! News. “I need somebody really clever to come up with a great idea and we’ll do it.”

Well, it looks like that finally happened. In June 2018, Witherspoon posted a video of herself floating in a pool à la Elle’s Harvard application video with the caption “It’s true… #LegallyBlonde3.”

There isn’t a lot of information yet, but here’s everything we know so far about Legally Blonde 3.

The cast. Witherspoon is definitely on board, but there’s no official word yet on who might be joining her. “It’s just a development project right now, so we’ll see,” Witherspoon told Entertainment Tonight in October 2019. “I love Jennifer Coolidge and Luke Wilson and Selma Blair and so there’s so many great characters that people love. If we end up doing it, hopefully, they end up all being there.”

“I hear that it is going, but I just don’t know what the timeline is,” Coolidge has said of bringing Paulette back to the big screen. “But you know, if I’m asked to do it, I’ll definitely be in there.” 

By January 2021, Coolidge was listed as a member of the cast on IMDB, along with Alanna Ubach and Jessica Cauffiel, who played Elle’s besties, Serena and Margot, in the first and second movies. 

“I have not talked to Reese about it, but yeah, I always kind of hear rumors here and there,” Wilson told ET in May 2020. “Never anything official about them doing another Legally Blonde, but I’d love to do another one. I mean, just that character Reese played was so funny at the time and that has kind of become this iconic character now.”

The release date: This is a big unknown at the moment, but the series confirmed that filming had resumed in a November 23 video posted to Twitter.

The cast: No official announcements have been made, but since Darren Barnet (Paxton Hall-Yoshida), Jaren Lewison (Ben), Richa Moorjani (Kamala), Ramona Young (Eleanor), Lee Rodriguez (Fabiola), and Poorna Jagannathan (Devi’s mom, Nalini) all appear in the announcement video with Ramakrishnan…we’re hopeful for them all to return. 

In November, Netflix announced Megan Suri will join the Never Have I Ever cast. She plays Aneesa, “a new student at Sherman Oaks High, whose confidence and radiance will pose an immediate threat to Devi,” the official Netflix account tweeted.

There are also three other characters who will be introduced in the second season. 

Tyler Alvarez will take on the role of Malcom, a teen actor who returns to Sherman Oaks High. Deadline describes the character as a “Young Hollywood” type, who “went to elementary school with Devi and her friends but left when he was cast in a Disney Channel show.”

Then there’s Utkarsh Ambudkar who you might recognize since he played as Mindy’s little brother on The Mindy Project. He will take on the role of Mr. Kulkarni, who Deadline describes as “the coolest teacher on staff at Sherman Oaks High.”

Finally, actor P.J. Byrne also joined the cast of Never Have I Ever as Evan, the head research assistant in Kamala’s (Devi’s cousin) program at Caltech.

The plot: We don’t know much of anything on this front, but we’re sure Kaling and her team will come up with some amazing storylines for Devi, her friends, her family, and that brewing love triangle. 

This post will be updated as more details emerge. 

Mindy Kaling has always cared deeply about her children’s privacy, but sometimes she can’t help but spill a few details about her three-year-old daughter, Katherine Swati, and her three-month-old son, Spencer Avu.

In a new interview for People that was published on December 16, the mom of two and visionary behind Never Have I Ever, The Mindy Project, and more discussed the inspiration behind her children’s names, as well as what it’s been like raising two kids as a single mom during the coronavirus pandemic. 

When you think of celebrity kids’ names, you probably think of Gwyneth Paltrow’s children, Apple and Moses. But Kaling wanted something more “classic.” 

“I don’t trust my own judgment with those kinds of names,” she said, revealing that her two kids are named after Hollywood legends Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. “If I name my son River, that connotes a certain kind of person who is very go with the flow, artsy. But what if he’s not like that at all? Will he be furious with me? I just tried to pick classic names that felt like they would have to work really hard to get mad at me about later.”

During COVID-19, the hardest thing about raising her two kids, Kaling says, is keeping them both entertained. “My daughter is going to preschool on Zoom and having sat with her through those Zooms and having gotten the curriculum that I was supposed to be teaching her at home, teachers should get paid, like, a billion dollars a week,” she says. “It’s hard enough to just teach in an effective way, but then to do it with these tiny children and keep them entertained—forget it! I think every mother who works is having the same realization through the pandemic that teachers should get paid, like, six figures.”

As for her son, Kaling notes he’s still in “that pre-baby blob stage,” but she is kind of disappointed by one difference between raising a boy vs. a girl: the clothes. 

“As someone who loves baby clothes, the options for boys are really the pits compared to girls,” she says. “With girls, they can be sporty, they can be princess-y, they can be so many different things. But for a boy, you can only dress them like a WASP-y 40-year-old wearing an anchor T-shirt, like Robert Redford in 1972.”

Though Mindy Kaling rarely shares pictures of her kids—and never their faces—we have a feeling baby Spencer will still manage to be one of the best-dressed kids around. 

---