Nick Kroll, who appeared on the latest episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast with Dax Shepard, was candid about orchestrating drug intervention in 2020 for his friend and collaborator John Mulaney.

The intervention took place during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. “It was so scary and brutal to go through,” Kroll recalled. “He was in New York. I was in L.A. It was at the height of the pandemic. It was incredibly stressful to be in the midst of that, trying to coordinate and produce an intervention, bringing a bunch of people together — friends from college, other close friends.”

“You’re all of a sudden going back and being like, ‘Oh, that’s why I’ve had an inconsistent friend for the last X amount of time,’” the comedian noted. “It gives you empathy for them and also tremendous amount of anger because they’ve been lying to you.”

In one raw moment, Kroll recalled a phone call with Mulaney days before the intervention. “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,” Kroll remembered. “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.’”

Mulaney later revealed he had been abusing Adderall, Xanax, Klonopin, Percocet and cocaine. He went straight from the intervention to rehab, where he stayed for two months.

Kroll recognizes the importance of allowing artists to process pain in their own way: “Everyone’s process and art are different. What makes Mulaney so funny and dynamic and intoxicating as a performer is that he’s giving you a written version of his life, access to elements of himself. And I myself am very guarded in certain ways.”

“John Mulaney: Baby J” was the 2023 Netflix comedy special that detailed Mulaney’s drug abuse and road to recovery.

The special earned an Emmy for outstanding writing for a variety special and critical acclaim for its unflinching honesty. In it, Mulaney calls the intervention “star-studded” and “life-saving.”

“I am grateful to everyone at my intervention,” Mulaney says in the special. “They confronted me, and they totally saved my life.”

Kroll, who is promoting the final season of Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” has only recently started talking publicly about the ordeal. “I don’t think people hear enough from the folks who are terrified during these things,” Kroll said. “Addicts talk about their experiences, often in brilliant, stand-up-ready ways. But there are also people in their lives who are just trying to keep them alive. That’s part of the story, too.”

Kroll and Mulaney have collaborated for over a decade, including the Broadway run of “Oh, Hello” at the Lyceum Theatre from 2016 to 2017. Their bond, though forged through comedy, was ultimately tested by crisis — and survived.