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Oprah’s Fabulous Baby Gift for Mindy Kaling’s Daughter Was So Big It Needed Its Own U-Haul Truck

2 minute read

When Mindy Kaling was pregnant with her baby daughter Katherine last year, it was her Wrinkle in Time co-star Oprah who spilled the beans to the world that The Mindy Project multi-hyphenate was expecting. Now that little Katherine is born, it appears that Oprah is still a major influence in this mother-and-daughter duo’s life, already thinking about Kaling’s daughter’s reading needs.

In an interview with USA Today, Kaling shared that after the baby was born, Oprah let her know that she would be sending over a present.

“I got a call from my assistant. She said, ‘Oprah’s assistant contacted me, she’d like to drop off a present,'” Kaling said. “I’m thinking, that’s so nice, like, (it’s) probably flowers. I had a kid, I’m a single mom. That’s really nice Oprah remembered.”

What she hadn’t anticipated, however, was that the present would be so big that it would need its own U-Haul truck.

“Two men are going to be coming to your house, they said, with a U-Haul truck. All you want in life is to hear that two men in a U-Haul truck are coming to your house because Oprah sent them. I was supposed to go to work that day (but I was like), I gotta be here.”

The present not only lived up to the expectations, but according to Kaling, exceeded them.

“They arrived with a hand-carved bookcase, prettier than any professional dollhouse you had ever seen that contained a hundred of the classic essential books in children’s literature,” Kaling said. “And I held my baby up to it and I said, ‘Did you see what Ms. Winfrey did for you?’ Each book has ‘Katherine’s Book Club’ on it.”

Winfrey commented that the gift was not quite as perfect as she wanted it to be since she had tried to make the bookshelf look like the treehouse that Kaling’s Wrinkle in Time character, Mrs. Who, lives in.

But to Kaling and Katherine, the gift is more than perfect.

“It’s the most amazing gift,” Kaling said.

 

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Write to Cady Lang at cady.lang@timemagazine.com