John Mulaney's "Rolex money" story is even more of a bummer than we thought

If there’s a prevailing tone to John Mulaney’s latest Netflix special, Baby J, it might be described as “bummer stories told with an upbeat tone.” That’s always been part of Mulaney’s thing—recounting weird or off-putting moments with a focus on the glee they provoke, rather than the existential misery they contain—but it’s especially poignant in this most recent set, given how much it delves into Mulaney’s recent struggles with addiction.

Among those stories, one of the most “Woof, man” is a tale Mulaney recounts in which he goes to extreme lengths to get around his own protections to try to curtail his drus spending—using his credit card to buy a Rolex, sell it for cash, and then spend the cash on drugs. (As Mulaney puts it: “Why don’t you name a better way to make $6,000 in five minutes by only spending $12,000?”) This is already, obviously, grim. But, as it turns out, it gets even more screwed up than originally reported, as Mulaney revealed during a podcast interview this week that he then proceeded to lose half of the money, accidentally throwing it away in the trash.

This is per Vulture, reporting on a conversation the comic had with THR’s Awards Chatter podcast, in which he revealed that, after operating the aforementioned get-poor-quick scheme, he then put half of the money in an Apple shopping bag—which then vanished. Mulaney: “I was in a 20-floor apartment building in the West Village back then, and I went through almost all the trash in the basement … Didn’t find it.”

So, if nothing else, we now have the answer to the age-old question “What’s sadder/funnier than a very successful comedian throwing away $6,000 so he could spend another $6,000 on drugs?”—and it turns out to have been “a very successful comedian (literally) throwing away $9,000 so he could spend another $3,000 on drugs.” Like we said: Woof, man.