Pickleball? Passé! Now Hollywood Is Mad for MahJong

Clockwise from top left: The mahjong set from A24's Everything Everywhere All At Once sold out but will be reissued in June. Siblings Adele and Fred Astaire played mahjong in 1926. A Halloween-themed tile set by Odd Mom Out creator Jill Kargman, who plans to compete in the MahJong World Championship in Las Vegas in October. The "Mahjong Queen" necklace from Nicky Hilton's jewelry line, Theo Grace. Sasha/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Courtesy of Brand (3)

Leave it to Larry David, who championed pickleball on Curb Your Enthusiasm, to ride the mahjong wave. During a March YES Network commercial, David calls Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay in a tailspin when he can’t find the game on TV, finally snapping, “I won’t watch it. I’ll play mahjong! I don’t care.” Kay asks dubiously, “You play mahjong?” — an opening for David’s line-gone-viral: “What, are you too cool for mahjong?”

Turns out David and his wife, Ashley Underwood, are quietly learning the game IRL in Montecito, where Meghan Markle clacks tiles with her own “mahj squad,” which consists of fashion designer Tracy James Robbins (wife of Brian Robbins), cosmetics entrepreneur Victoria Jackson and former WME agent Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. Godmothers bookstore in Summerland, co-owned by Jackson and Walsh, offers mahj games and lessons.

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A pastime dating back to 1800s China, “old style” mahjong had a resurgence in the 1920s after Standard Oil exec Joseph Park Babcock returned from a decade in the country and teamed with Abercrombie & Fitch to sell imported sets. Then he taught Douglas Fairbanks how to play. Soon President Warren G. Harding and first lady Florence Harding were clicking tiles in the White House. In 1926, siblings Fred and Adele Astaire were photographed at a mahjong table in London, as they headlined the musical feature Lady, Be Good!

Now mahjong is having another splashy Hollywood moment. While the game never went away, its recent explosion in popularity seems linked to a post-pandemic yearning for social connection, combined with influential stars posting their mahj passion and the collectible beauty of the tile sets themselves. Some question whether all the American mahjong hoopla is irreverently stretching the game a bit too far from its Asian heritage.

Jill Kargman and mahjong coach to the stars Cari Kuprenas. Courtesy of Cari Kuprenas

(If you’re too cool to know the rules, it’s loosely like gin rummy but with tiles instead of cards. In traditional Asian mahjong, players create flexible tile combinations, while American mahjong follows preset hands. There are more than 40 variations played globally. Standardized in 1937, American mahjong adds eight joker “wild cards.”)

“I think, post-COVID, there has been such a big explosion because it’s literally a convening,” says veteran producer Suzanne Todd (Bad Moms), who has organized power games since 2003 and plays at home, the Bel-Air Bay Club and Jonathan Club. “It feels like once you start, that it’s required. It’s that sharing of actual air space together. Also, it’s this thing now of all the hot girls having grandma hobbies.”

Then there’s the tile fixation. “People collect tiles like they collect Birkin bags,” exclaims Todd, whose foursome includes Monica Lewinsky, head of MGM Television Lindsay Sloane and trend forecasting consultant Jane Buckingham. “When we started playing, there were basically two companies you could buy tiles from. Now, having a certain level and amount of tiles has quickly become very status-y. Crisloid sets that sell for $2,000 to $3,000 go on the secondary market for $15,000 to $20,000.”

Mahj to Go co-founders Lynne Spillman and Heidi Brooks, who oversee open play and tournaments at San Vicente Bungalows, have been spotted slapping their branded tiles around town with Reese Witherspoon and Cindy Crawford. Blake Lively famously had her Oh My Mahjong set delivered to a Manhattan courthouse in February so she could practice amid legal battles with Justin Baldoni. A Hollywood mahj teacher shares what might be the most coveted seat in town: “All the moms in Malibu have been vying for years to be in Julia Roberts’ mahjong group!”

Mahjong Megachurch co-founders Eileen Foliente (the former membership director at San Vicente Bungalows) and fashion stylist Jared Eng, of Just Jared fame. Says Eng, “People want and crave social interaction, and that’s what mahjong does.” Courtesy of Subject

The skyrocketing business in tile sets, mats and merch by primarily white-owned American companies that replace traditional Asian symbols with every motif imaginable (flowers, food, holiday iconography) has led to whitewashing allegations. As did the Hallmark Channel film All’s Fair in Love & Mahjong, which landed May 9 to online blowback for its lack of Asian representation in the cast.

But backlash has not blunted the growth and evolution of the game, which continues to enjoy cross-cultural popularity. Bicoastal Chinese American mahjong instructor Cari Kuprenas first learned American mahjong 20 years ago at the Starbucks in Brentwood Village. Now she counts Sarah Jessica Parker (whom she calls “a mahj OG and razor sharp”) and Jessica Seinfeld among her students. “The Chinese invented paper and the compass and gunpowder and everyone’s using those,” says Kuprenas, putting the claims of cultural appropriation into perspective. “This game has its origins in China but, in 1937, Jewish women made their version of it and that’s what we’re all playing. And I’m Chinese.”

The beauty of mahjong, Kuprenas says, “is that it’s 70 percent luck and 30 percent skill. So if I taught you tomorrow, you could beat me, even though I’ve been playing for decades.”

Actress Joey King (The Act), a regular at the Mahjong Megachurch. Courtesy

In June, Kuprenas and public relations maven Carol Bell will debut a Mahj in the Wild podcast. Among the first guests are Just Jared founder-fashion stylist Jared Eng and Eileen Foliente, former membership director at San Vicente Bungalows, who debuted their buzzy Mahjong Megachurch club in November. With invite-only services in Eng’s Beverly Hills home, the group has made its mission to teach the traditional “old style” Taiwanese version of the game to a wider audience. When Eng ran into Hacks stars Hannah Einbinder and Paul Downs at a recent party, they let out a rallying cry of “Mahjong, mahjong, mahjong!”

Maria Shriver and Hoda Kotb first learned from Oh My Mahjong instructors at a November retreat in Los Cabos for Shriver’s non-profit, Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement. “I’m trying to get better!” Shriver tells THR. “We know from studies that it’s good for brain health, which is … why I tell every woman I meet that if they don’t know mahjong and care about their brain, they should learn how to play!”

Most swear their mahj groups are all about fun, but Eng sees the low-key jostling: “It’s a little Hollywood, like ‘Who’s in the room?’ But you’re focused on the game and trying to win. In mahjong, you’re reading people and building alliances. You are paying attention to dynamics. It’s social strategy disguised as a game.”

This story appeared in the May 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.