Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak shared their admiration for each other while she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Tuesday.

During her speech at the ceremony, the actress gushed over her former The Office co-star, who is also the godfather to her kids.

“He’s such an important and integral part of my family,” Kaling said, before noting “sometimes I forget that the reason that I know him is because we worked together professionally.”

She continued, jokingly, “I’m as starstruck by him now at age 29 as I was when I first met you—at 24.”

Before Kaling took the stage, Novak shared his own praise, both personal and professional, highlighting Kaling’s impact on her audience and those around her.

“Mindy respects and understands [fame] in a very intuitive way because in addition to being a brilliant and wildly successful showrunner, an incredible mother of three, a deep and caring daughter, and friend and mentor to so many, she always makes the extra effort to show people her real personality, her real values, her real standards, her real sense of style, her real sense of humor. And I’ve seen what a difference it makes,” he shared.

Concluding his remarks, he said, “You’d be on the walk of talent if they had one. You’d be on the walk of friendship. You’d be on the walk of compassionate parenthood. But let’s face it, all of these would be terrible field trips, so here you are instead, very deservedly, a person who means so much to so many on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

Last June, Kaling shared in an Instagram post for her 45th birthday that she had given birth to her daughter Anne in late February. She is also mom to daughter Katherine, born in 2017, and son Spencer, born in 2020.

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