Ali Wong Details the Romantic Way Boyfriend Bill Hader Won Her Heart: 'I Did Fall in Love Again'

"'I want you to be my girlfriend,'" Wong recalled Hader saying to her after only meeting a couple times

Ali Wong is reflecting on her single life — and, now being taken!

In her new Netflix comedy special, Ali Wong: Single Lady, Wong, 42, talks about her split from ex-husband Justin Hakuta and re-entering the dating scene. Noting that she didn’t intend for that part of her life to be such a popular topic of conversation, she joked that it then became a perfect topic for her comedy.

“I didn’t expect the news of my divorce to be so widespread and public,” Wong explained. “I felt really embarrassed and ashamed, but I didn’t realize that all of these media outlets were acting like a Bat-Signal, letting all potentially interested men know that I was suddenly available. I’ve never been pursued this much in my life.”

Related: Ali Wong Jokes About Her Dating Woes and Why '40 Is the Golden Age to Get Divorced' in New Netflix Comedy Special (Exclusive)

Wong then revealed she met a man — someone she had only seen a couple of times before at dinner parties — and a mutual friend gave him her number. The suitor, who she later revealed is her now-boyfriend Bill Hader, immediately made a move on Wong.

“‘Hey, Ali. I just happened to hear the news of your divorce today, and I gotta tell you…I’m excited,’” she remembered the actor saying. “‘I am, Ali, because, look, I have had a crush on you forever, and I actually told my best friend years ago that you were my dream girl. And I know this sounds crazy, but, uh, I want you to be my girlfriend.’”

Wong quipped that the offer came at an awkward time, as she had just “paid $250” for a dating app, so she went on with her life.

“Shortly after that phone call, I take off to Europe,” Wong said. “I arrive in London and discovered that this man had sent me a bouquet of flowers.”

As she traveled to Amsterdam, Cologne and Copenhagen, she continued to receive flowers from Hader.

“I told all my girlfriends and they were like, ‘Oh my God, that is so sweet. I am so jealous,’” she gushed, before joking about the vastly different reaction her male friends had. “They were like, ‘That dude sounds like a psychopath.’ That’s how cheap and lazy men have become—that now when a fellow man commits any act of kindness, any romantic gesture, it must be a symptom of an undiagnosed mental illness.”

Still, Wong continued to go on dates with people (who were not Hader), including with a “big fancy movie director.”

“I think for the longest time I was so focused on getting d---ed down,” she joked. “Because the task of finding a boyfriend, someone who I consider talented, someone who makes me laugh, someone who I have a real connection with, someone who I look up to as an artist, someone that I would feel proud to introduce to my kids, my peers and my friends and my mentors, I mean, that seemed impossible, you know?”

Related: Bill Hader Joins Girlfriend Ali Wong on Stage During Last Night of Her L.A. Residency —with Red Rose in Hand!

The Beef star has also remained close with her ex, which poses another challenge in her dating life.

“Divorce gets a really bad reputation and it can sound really scary and full of acrimony,” she said. “But then just look at me as an alternate example of how it can be: I’m best friends with my ex-husband.”

“I need him desperately, and I need to respect him,” she continued.

In the end, Wong revealed that the man who is now her boyfriend is Hader.

“I did fall in love again,” she said. “Some of you might know who the guy is. And it just so happens to be the man who sent me all of those flowers in Europe.”

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Hader and Wong confirmed their relationship in April 2023, one year after she separated from Hakuta. The pair briefly dated in 2022 but reconnected later and have remained a couple.

In the past, she has talked about keeping the relationship “very selectively private” but highlighted several similarities in their lives that make the pair work well.

“It’s just also, like, we’re both, like, in our 40s and parents,” Wong told Access Hollywood in January.

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