John Mulaney Opens Up About Pre-Rehab Intervention: 'I Didn't Know You Weren't Allowed To Be Funny'

“When I opened the door, I knew right away it was an intervention. That’s how bad of a drug problem I had, that when I opened the door and saw people I went, ‘This is probably an intervention,’ Mulaney told Meyers. "You know the gambit: that I was going to dinner with a friend from college at their apartment, and you were the first person I saw as I walked through he doorway where I knew this was an intervention. So, ‘I’m going to dinner with a friend from college, going to dinner with a friend from college, going to dinner with a friend from college, what’s Seth Meyers doing here? F**k! F**k!'”

Despite seeing a group of concerned ones gathered together to have a serious chat, the Saturday Night Live writer couldn't help but make light of the situation. “I needed to be the smartest guy in the room, even at the intervention," the comedian recalled. "So I remember saying to all of you, 'Before you all read your letter, I have a drug problem and I need help,' just to scoop you."

Although Mulaney cracks jokes for a living, even he can look back and see that his initial approach the intervention wasn't exactly the right route. In fact, the Chicago native admitted he has two regrets from that night. "I kept insisting that I was sober at the intervention ... I wasn’t," he told Meyers, quipping, "I remember when I kept going to the bathroom, that was for drugs."

"But the other thing that still sticks, do you remember when I inisisted on getting the credit for days I hadn't used drugs?" he said. "That was a really weird hill to die on in the middle of an intervention: I want you all to acknowledge that on Monday and Tuesday, I didn’t do drugs."

Mulaney asked Meyers, 47, what it was like to be on the other side of the intervention, to which the late night talk show host admitted, "It was awful."

“I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to be funny. I walk into the intervention and I’m so mad. I didn’t want an intervention, at that moment in time, I wanted to continue doing drugs," Mulaney confessed. "Sitting here tonight, I am so grateful to you and everyone there for saving my life."

Of course, Mulaney couldn't help but slip in one more joke. "As mad as I was, I looked around at the group [and] I was like, 'This is a good group,'" he added. "It was like, we are the world of alternative comedians over the age of 40 — so many funny people and then no one did bits the entire time."