John Belushi Didn’t Want to Die, Lorne Michaels Warned John Mulaney

John Mulaney talks about the star-studded intervention that sent him to rehab in his Netflix special Baby J, but one famous name was missing from the list of his famous, concerned friends: SNL producer Lorne Michaels. But as the self-described alcoholic and drug addict explains to David Letterman in his latest My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Michaels did reach out to Mulaney during his recovery and their conversation had a tremendous impact. 

“Did you ever think of John Belushi in your condition?” Letterman asked, drawing a parallel between the two Saturday Night Live alums. Belushi died at 33 after a drug dealer injected him with a mixture of heroin and cocaine at the Chateau Marmont; Mulaney was only a few years older when confronted with his addictions. 

Mulaney didn’t really make the connection, he admits. But after the blow-up of his intervention, he had an hour-long phone conversation with Michaels from his room at rehab. “I’ve got nothing to do if you want to just talk,” Mulaney recalls his old boss saying. And then Lorne laid this on him.

“I knew John Belushi for seven years,” Michaels said. “I’ve been talking about him for 48 years. That’s the shrapnel that happens when someone goes down like that.” Belushi didn’t want to die, Michaels reminded Mulaney. It wasn’t his plan. And even though the comic’s story is so well known, so set in history, it’s important to remember that people don’t want to die as a result of their addictions. 

Letterman asked if that warning changed Mulaney’s point of view. “Thinking about the shrapnel you leave behind if you go down that way,” the comic said, “yeah.”

Letterman empathized with Mulaney’s demons, acknowledging his own addiction to alcohol. “I started drinking early, like 11,” he said. “And continued, and then at 34, gave it up for good.” Letterman was afraid of losing his new late-night gig after the cancellation of his morning show, knowing he’d never forgive himself if the reason was his drinking. “But I think I was in the high minors (of addiction) compared to you,” says Letterman. 

Mulaney agreed that his problem likely went deeper. While in rehab, he went through uncomfortable withdrawal from a cocktail of substances that included benzodiazepines like Xanax and Klonopin. The discomfort was so great that he ground his teeth incessantly, cracking a molar. “I went in to see the doctor,” Mulaney says. “I’d been there about four days and I said to him, ‘I know, but I’m going. I’ve heard every argument you guys have but I’m going back to New York City.’ And he didn’t argue or anything. He just went, ‘John, we both know how this movie ends.’”

That was it, Mulaney says. “I just nodded and went back to my room and stayed.”