Ali Wong's 2 Kids: All About Mari and Nikki

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic

Ali Wong’s daughters are the inspiration behind her 2019New York Timesbestselling bookDear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life.

The comedian and her ex-husband,Justin Hakuta, were married for nearly a decade before they split in April 2022 andfinalized their divorcein May 2024. Together they share two daughters: Mari, 9, and Nikki, 7.

In a 2024 interview withInStyle,Wong credited Hakuta with her ability to be a “non-traditional” mom, along with the help she receives from her own mother.

“It’s mostly because of her and the father of my children that I’ve been able to do everything I do," she said.

“I remembered my dad had written me this letter that started with ‘Dear Alexandra’ before he passed away and it was reflecting on our relationship,” Wong toldEllen DeGeneres. “It was really sweet, but it was short and I wish he had written more. And after he passed, it was too late to ask him all of these questions about who he was before he became my dad and he grew up really poor and I only knew him as this successful anesthesiologist.”

She continued, “My girls, they only know me after I filmed those specials with them in utero, so they don’t know everything that I went through to get to where I am and I think it’s really important.”

In addition to her daughters serving as the inspiration for her book, motherhood has given Wong plenty of material to draw on in her comedy, and she has been very candid about her parenting experiences through the years — though she never jokes about her daughters specifically.

Keep reading to learn more about Ali Wong’s two kids.

Mari Hakuta, 9

Jesse Grant/Getty

“There’s not a lot of sign of me in her name,” she explained. “And I think subconsciously I did that to try and ensure he would love her.”

“Apparently, there was some blood flow resistance in the umbilical cord from the placenta to Mari,” she wrote. “It was unsafe for her to stay in my womb past thirty-seven weeks at the very latest, and my obstetrician explained that she would get better nutrition outside rather than staying inside.”

After Mari was born, Wong wrote in her book about her attempt to be a stay-at-home mom for Mari, which lasted only eight weeks. “Mari was so easy and chill, and still at the end of the day I was completely exhausted. The little things just took a lot out of me,” she penned.

Wong told DeGeneres that she was happy with her decision to have two kids and would not have any more children, explaining, “I love being a mom and I like having two kids. But I’ve had two C-sections and I’ve suffered enough.”

“That’s my favorite mantra when it comes to motherhood: I have suffered enough,” she added. “Whenever I feel mom-guilt or feel pressured to be a better mom, to cook salmon on a bed of quinoa for my kids, I just think to myself, ‘I have suffered enough.’ And then I feel fine about feeding my toddler a bag of chips for dinner.”

While Wong latertold DeGeneresthat she didn’t want her daughters to be comedians because of the safety factor, she did talk about some of the funniest things Mari has done during an October 2019 interview withTIME.

“It’s hard to describe how funny this is but when my oldest daughter was maybe 1½, she did this thing where she would fart and immediately she’d look at me and say, ‘No,’ " Wong said. “And it was serious. She wouldn’t laugh or anything. But her timing was so good. She would catch it right at the tail end of the fart where she would be like, ‘No.'”

Nikki Hakuta, 7

Frederick M. Brown/Getty

Wong welcomed her younger daughter, Nikki, in December 2017. Wong was pregnant with Nikki during her second Netflix special,Hard Knock Wife.She deliberately chose to have her daughters close in age due to the “painful” age gap between her siblings as the youngest of four kids.

“They were all ten to fifteen years older than I was and had lived a whole different life as a family of five before I was born,” she wrote inDear Girls. “There are framed pictures of them, all on skis. By the time I was born, my parents weren’t hitting the slopes; they were hitting the Metamucil.”

As a mom of two, Wong has both of her daughters in tow as she tours the country for her standup. In an April 2019 interview withVanity Fair,it was reported that the comedian traveled with Mari and Nikki, Hakuta and either a nanny or her relatives throughout her Milk & Money tour. This way, in each city, the family was able to enjoy the area, including partaking in various kid-friendly activities, such as trips to a museum or science center. Once the kids went to sleep, Wong hit the stage for her show.

Today, Wong continues tobring her daughters with her on tour. During a March 2023 interview withThe Hollywood Reporter,she explained, “Taking kids on the road is so beautiful. It’s the opposite of film and television where I’m just gone all day.

“It’s a really fun family adventure because basically at night I’m performing, and then during the day, we go on adventures to the children’s museum or the gardens or we see family friends,” she added. “It’s really cool that they’ve seen so much of America.”

While Wong often joked about Hakuta during her standup routines and was pregnant during her 2016 and 2018 Netflix specials, she purposefully doesn’t tell jokes about her daughters while on stage.

“I do feel like I’d have to get their permission, and they’re 5 and 7; they still don’t fully understand what I do,” she told the outlet. “And also, there was a lot to complain about when they were infants and it was so hard, but now it’s so corny because I love them so much and love spending time with them, and anything I would complain about would feel cliché and contrived.”

source: people.com