During the 34th Annual Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night, B.J. Novak honored one of his closest friends (and nothing more, sorry stans), Mindy Kaling, with the Norman Lear Achievement Award. He reminisced about their beginnings as writers together on The Office, which marked the beginning of their friendship and romantic relationship. “We were in love with each other, and we were reckless idiots,†Novak said. “When the producers realized that our relationship as co-writers had jumped every conceivable boundary and become a tumultuous, romantic, toxic, boundaryless mess, they pulled us aside and said, ‘Hey, you should have scenes together too.’â€
Novak poked fun at the references to their relationship in her post–The Office series, The Mindy Project. He described the love interests of Mindy Lahiri as “men who all looked weirdly like me.†Despite the end of their romance, Novak had nothing but love for his best friend. “I did have a front-row seat to television history; it was just facing this way,†Novak shared as he turned his face to look to the side of him, where Kaling would’ve sat in a writers’ room. The heartfelt and, honestly, very romantic speech from Novak will fuel at least three more years of relationship rumors between the two besties.