Anna Marie Tendler’s Posts About Grief Seem Directed At John Mulaney
She opened up about her “harsh and punishing” year.
New year, same controversy. When John Mulaney and Anna Marie Tendler’s divorce became public in May 2021, fans of the comedian were shocked — particularly when it was rumored that Mulaney was expecting a baby with Olivia Munn. (And yep, those rumors were true.) At the time, Tendler pointed the blame for the breakup squarely in the direction of her ex, making a statement through her rep that she was “heartbroken that John has decided to end our marriage.” It seems like that hurt is (understandably) still impacting Tendler as she enters the new year. On Dec. 31, 2021, Tender posted an Instagram about “loss,” and it seemed to be a jab at Mulaney (who posted a picture of his and Munn’s new baby exactly one week earlier).
“Over the past two years it seems that change has been synonymous with loss and collectively this loss has been unfathomable,” Tendler wrote. “It is tempting to construct a poetic list of all we’ve watched slip through our hands, but what’s the point? We already know it and we grieve it daily... [M]elancholia is oft amplified by circumstance and the circumstances of my year have been harsh and punishing.”
She continued, “So how does one digest grief? How do we metabolize trauma, collective and individual? How, precisely, do we sit with, in order to move through? We call our friends; we allow ourselves to laugh. We cry in parked cars. We work; we rest... We ask for help or learn to ask for help. We love or learn to love again.”
In her post, Tendler also made it clear that she is looking to 2022 with optimism despite the losses of 2021. “Here’s to all the things we did this year to cope and here’s to all we will do next year to heal,” she added.
Instagram wasn’t the only place where she opened up about her end-of-year reflections. Taking to TikTok on Jan. 1, Tendler posted a video full of the photographs she took over the past year. (Tendler is an artist with an MA in fashion and textile history.) The pics are intense and emotional. In one, she’s looking in the distance and crying. In another, she’s posing with her dog, Petunia, that she used to share with Mulaney. (Tendler seemed to have gotten custody in the divorce.)
She captioned her series of photos, “As it turns out, grief is the ultimate creator!! lol!” The video, set to the Fleabag TikTok sound, has racked up 38,000 likes. So yeah, when it comes to the divorce, TikTok is strictly Team Tendler.
Things might not have worked out between Tendler and Mulaney, but it seems like they are both moving on from the pain of divorce in their own way. Mulaney covers some aspects of the divorce in his current comedy tour, From Scratch. Here’s hoping that they both continue to heal in the next year.
