Ali Wong’s daughters are the inspiration behind her 2019 New York Instances bestselling guide Expensive Women: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets and techniques & Recommendation for Dwelling Your Finest Life.
The comic and her ex-husband, Justin Hakuta, had been married for practically a decade earlier than they break up in April 2022 and finalized their divorce in Might 2024. Collectively they share two daughters: Mari, 10, and Nikki, 8.
In a 2024 interview with InStyle, Wong credited Hakuta along with her potential to be a “non-traditional” mother, together with the assistance she receives from her personal mom.
“It’s largely due to her and the daddy of my youngsters that I’ve been in a position to do all the pieces I do,” she stated.
Wong was famously pregnant along with her youngsters throughout her 2016 and 2018 Netflix comedy specials Child Kobra and Laborious Knock Spouse, which helped spring the comic into stardom.
Following the success of her first comedy particular, Wong was provided a guide deal, however she did not have any concepts to pursue as a subject till she remembered a candy act by her late father, Adolphus Wong, who died in 2011 from most cancers. This letter impressed her to jot down the guide within the type of letters devoted to her personal daughters.
“I remembered my dad had written me this letter that began with ‘Expensive Alexandra’ earlier than he handed away and it was reflecting on our relationship,” Wong advised Ellen DeGeneres. “It was actually candy, but it surely was brief and I want he had written extra. And after he handed, it was too late to ask him all of those questions on who he was earlier than he grew to become my dad and he grew up actually poor and I solely knew him as this profitable anesthesiologist.”
She continued, “My women, they solely know me after I filmed these specials with them in utero, so they do not know all the pieces that I went via to get to the place I’m and I believe it is actually necessary.”
Along with her daughters serving because the inspiration for her guide, motherhood has given Wong loads of materials to attract on in her comedy, and he or she has been very candid about her parenting experiences via the years — although she by no means jokes about her daughters particularly.
Preserve studying to study extra about Ali Wong’s two children.
Mari Hakuta, 10
Wong’s older daughter, Mari, was born in November 2015 through cesarean part. The comic was pregnant with Mari in her first Netflix comedy particular Child Kobra. In a Might 2018 interview with the New York Instances, the At all times Be My Possibly star joked that she was frightened her then-husband would not love their little one. Wong determined to present her daughter a Japanese first identify, as her ex is half-Japanese and half-Filipino, in addition to Hakuta’s surname.
“There’s not numerous signal of me in her identify,” she defined. “And I believe subconsciously I did that to attempt to guarantee he would love her.”
In her 2019 guide, Wong was candid about her being pregnant along with her first little one, writing in regards to the well being situation she was recognized with known as intrauterine progress restriction (IUGR). She stated she discovered the information when she was 30 weeks pregnant and discovered from her docs that her child “wasn’t rising sufficient.”
“Apparently, there was some blood movement resistance within the umbilical twine from the placenta to Mari,” she wrote. “It was unsafe for her to remain in my womb previous thirty-seven weeks on the very newest, and my obstetrician defined that she would get higher diet exterior relatively than staying inside.”
After Mari was born, Wong wrote in her guide about her try and be a stay-at-home mother for Mari, which lasted solely eight weeks. “Mari was really easy and chill, and nonetheless on the finish of the day I used to be utterly exhausted. The little issues simply took lots out of me,” she penned.
Following the delivery of her youthful daughter, Nikki, Wong spoke about how Mari was adjusting to being an enormous sister throughout an April 2018 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Present. The Beef actress stated that simply three months into having a youthful sister, Mari was “very jealous at first.”
“When the brand new child got here, my toddler wished to be a child once more,” Wong defined. “Having a 2-year-old is actually laborious. I really feel like I am in a relationship with an emotionally unstable lady who can also be bodily abusive and by no means will get in hassle for it. She kicked me within the neck in the present day for rationing her Skinny Mint consumption. So anytime you see photos of us smiling, it is lies.”
Wong advised DeGeneres that she was glad along with her choice to have two children and wouldn’t have any extra youngsters, explaining, “I like being a mother and I like having two children. However I’ve had two C-sections and I’ve suffered sufficient.”
“That is my favourite mantra relating to motherhood: I’ve suffered sufficient,” she added. “Each time I really feel mom-guilt or really feel pressured to be a greater mother, to cook dinner salmon on a mattress of quinoa for my children, I simply assume to myself, ‘I’ve suffered sufficient.’ After which I really feel high quality about feeding my toddler a bag of chips for dinner.”
Whereas Wong later advised DeGeneres that she did not need her daughters to be comedians due to the protection issue, she did speak about among the funniest issues Mari has achieved throughout an October 2019 interview with TIME.
“It is laborious to explain how humorous that is however when my oldest daughter was possibly 1½, she did this factor the place she would fart and instantly she’d take a look at me and say, ‘No,’ ” Wong stated. “And it was severe. She would not giggle or something. However her timing was so good. She would catch it proper on the tail finish of the fart the place she could be like, ‘No.'”
Nikki Hakuta, 8
Wong welcomed her youthful daughter, Nikki, in December 2017. Wong was pregnant with Nikki throughout her second Netflix particular, Laborious Knock Spouse. She intentionally selected to have her daughters shut in age because of the “painful” age hole between her siblings because the youngest of 4 children.
“They had been all ten to fifteen years older than I used to be and had lived an entire completely different life as a household of 5 earlier than I used to be born,” she wrote in Expensive Women. “There are framed photos of them, all on skis. By the point I used to be born, my dad and mom weren’t hitting the slopes; they had been hitting the Metamucil.”
As a mother of two, Wong has each of her daughters in tow as she excursions the nation for her standup. In an April 2019 interview with Self-importance Honest, it was reported that the comic traveled with Mari and Nikki, Hakuta and both a nanny or her kin all through her Milk & Cash tour. This manner, in every metropolis, the household was in a position to benefit from the space, together with partaking in numerous kid-friendly actions, reminiscent of journeys to a museum or science middle. As soon as the youngsters went to sleep, Wong hit the stage for her present.
At present, Wong continues to carry her daughters along with her on tour. Throughout a March 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she defined, “Taking children on the street is so lovely. It is the other of movie and tv the place I am simply gone all day.
“It is a actually enjoyable household journey as a result of principally at night time I am performing, after which through the day, we go on adventures to the youngsters’s museum or the gardens or we see household mates,” she added. “It is actually cool that they’ve seen a lot of America.”
Whereas Wong usually joked about Hakuta throughout her standup routines and was pregnant throughout her 2016 and 2018 Netflix specials, she purposefully does not inform jokes about her daughters whereas on stage.
“I do really feel like I might must get their permission, they usually’re 5 and seven; they nonetheless do not totally perceive what I do,” she advised the outlet. “And in addition, there was lots to complain about after they had been infants and it was so laborious, however now it is so corny as a result of I like them a lot and love spending time with them, and something I might complain about would really feel cliché and contrived.”
