John Mulaney‘s been very open about his issues with addiction and getting sober, and in a new interview with David Letterman, the comedian reveals something his old boss Lorne Michaels said that has stuck with him.

On Letterman’s Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Mulaney recalls how Michaels invoked the death of Saturday Night Live alum John Belushi, who succumbed to his own struggles with addiction at the age of 33 in 1982.

While in rehab, Mulaney received a call from Michaels and they talked on the phone for an hour. “He goes, ‘I knew John Belushi for seven years. I’ve been talking about him for 48 years, because that’s the shrapnel that happens when someone goes down like that,'” Mulaney said.

Belushi was among the original cast of SNL and starred in films like Animal House and The Blues Brothers. He died from an injection of a combination of cocaine and heroin, following a days-long drug binge on March 5, 1982.

Mulaney continued, “And [Michaels] goes, ‘You know, John didn’t want to die. You know, he didn’t plan to. Just because it’s a story, just because it’s sort of set in stone like history, people don’t want to die from this.'”

The Big Mouth actor checked into rehab in December 2020 to get a handle on his substance abuse and addiction, which he had been dealing with for decades. Mulaney described the intervention, featuring many of his famous and funny friends, in his Emmy-winning 2023 standup special Baby J.

But Mulaney revealed to Letterman that he tried to leave rehab early, after spending only four days at the facility, when the doctor told him something profound.

“He didn’t argue or anything, he just went, ‘John. We both know how this movie ends.’ And that was it,” Mulaney said. “I just kind of nodded and went back to my room and stayed.” 

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