Nick Kroll revealed he helped arrange friend and collaborator John Mulaney’s intervention out of fear that Mulaney’s drug addiction could kill him.

During Monday’s episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast with Dax Shepard, Kroll talked about the stakes as he tried bringing Mulaney’s loved ones together to make him face the facts about his substance abuse.

“It was so scary and brutal to go through,” confessed Kroll, who first met Mulaney when they were students at Georgetown before becoming a frequent collaborator.

“He was in New York. I was in LA. It was at the height of the pandemic. So it was incredibly stressful to be in the midst of that, trying to literally coordinate and produce an intervention, bringing a bunch of people together — friends from college, other close friends.”

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Not only was the intervention staged in the thick of COVID-19, but Kroll’s wife was on the brink of having their first child while he was shooting the controversy-plagued psychological thriller “Don’t Worry Darling.”

“There was no stress there,” Kroll joked, adding, “John was running around New York City like a true madman. And I was so deeply scared that he was gonna die.”

John Mulaney and Nick Kroll co-hosting the 2017 Independent Spirit Awards. During a recent appearance on the "Armchair Expert" podcast, Kroll told host Dax Shepard that Mulaney's addiction intervention was a life-or death matter. Variety via Getty Images

Kroll told Shepard, who began his own sobriety journey over two decades ago, that emotions were running high even before the intervention played out.

Recalling a phone conversation with Mulaney days before the confrontation, Kroll said, “I have a very clear memory of being outside of my house — someone was working inside, and we were still mid-pandemic. I just sat on the ground, on the phone with him, both of us crying.”

“I said, ‘I’m so scared you’re going to die.’ And I could feel him feeling the same way, but also like — ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah…anyway, I gotta go. I’m at a new Airbnb.’”

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When it was finally time to tackle his personal crisis head-on, Mulaney admitted he had been abusing Adderall, Xanax, Klonopin, Percocet and cocaine.

From there, he went straight to inpatient rehab, where he underwent treatment for two months.

Though Kroll told Shepard he could sense Mulaney was “still pretty fucking pissed” about his inner circle giving him the rehab ultimatum when he returned from his stint in rehab, the comedian said he much preferred resentment to the possibility of seeing his friend kill himself.

“I just didn’t want to lose him,” he explained. “It’s that simple.”

Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.

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