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Jenny McCarthy

Jennifer Ann McCarthy-Wahlberg (née McCarthy; born November 1, 1972)[2] is an American actress, model, and television personality. She began her career in 1993 as a nude model for Playboy magazine and was later named their Playmate of the Year. McCarthy then had a television and film acting career, beginning as a co-host on the MTV game show Singled Out (1995–1997) and afterwards starring in the eponymous sitcom Jenny (1997–1998), as well as films including BASEketball (1998), Scream 3 (2000), Dirty Love (2005), John Tucker Must Die (2006), and Santa Baby (2006). In 2013, she hosted her own television talk show The Jenny McCarthy Show, and became a co-host of the ABC talk show The View, appearing on the program until 2014. Since 2019, McCarthy has been a judge on the Fox musical competition show The Masked Singer.

Jenny McCarthy

Jennifer Ann McCarthy

(1972-11-01) November 1, 1972

Jennifer Wahlberg[1]

  • Actress
  • model
  • television personality
  • activist
  • writer

1993–present

(m. 1999; div. 2005)
(m. 2014)

Jim Carrey
(2005–2010)

1

McCarthy has written several books about parenting and has promoted research into environmental causes and alternative medical treatments for autism. She has promoted the disproven idea that vaccines cause autism,[3][4] and said that chelation therapy, a quack remedy, helped cure her son of autism.[4][5][6][7] McCarthy's proselytization of these views has been called "dangerous", "reckless", and "uninformed".[8] She has been described by journalists as "the nation's most prominent purveyor of anti-vaxxer ideology"[9] and "the face of the anti-vaxx movement".[10] She disputes the anti-vaccine label,[11] saying she prefers the term "pro-safe-vaccine-schedule", a term that has met strong criticism.[12][13][14][15]

Early life

McCarthy was born on November 1, 1972, at Little Company of Mary Hospital located in the southwest Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park, Illinois.[16] She was born to a working-class Catholic family, and has German, Irish, and Polish ancestry.[17][18] She lived in the West Elsdon neighborhood of Chicago.[19] She is the second of four daughters – her sisters are named Lynette, Joanne, and Amy; actress Melissa McCarthy is her cousin.[20][21] Her parents, Dan and Linda McCarthy of Orland Park, encouraged all of their kids to be active in high school sports: Lynette ran track; Jenny played softball; and both Amy and Joanne chose basketball. The sisters did gymnastics and bowling as youths.[22] McCarthy's mother, Linda, was a housewife and courtroom custodian, and her father, Dan McCarthy, was a steel mill foreman.[23][24]


As a teenager McCarthy attended Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, whose school sweater she donned in the pages of Playboy, and was a cheerleader at both Brother Rice High School and St. Laurence High School,[25] although she has referred to herself as an "outcast" at her school[26] and has said she was repeatedly bullied by classmates.[27] She spent two years at Southern Illinois University.[23][15]

Jenny McCarthy

5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)

Personal life

McCarthy dated manager Ray Manzella from 1994 until 1998 and began dating actor/director John Mallory Asher late in 1998.[94] The couple was engaged in January 1999 and married on September 11 of that year. They have a son, Evan, born in May 2002, who was diagnosed with autism in May 2005.[4][95] McCarthy and Asher divorced in September 2005.[96]


In December 2005, McCarthy began dating actor Jim Carrey. They did not make their relationship public until June 2006. She announced on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on April 2, 2008, that she and Carrey were living together but had no plans to marry, as they did not need a "piece of paper".[97] Carrey almost made a mock proposal to McCarthy as a promotion for the film Yes Man (2008) for Ellen's Twelve Days of Christmas. In April 2010, McCarthy and Carrey announced that they had split up.[98]


In July 2013, McCarthy stated that she was dating singer and actor Donnie Wahlberg, known for being a member of New Kids on the Block and the television series Blue Bloods.[99] On April 16, 2014, McCarthy announced on The View that she and Wahlberg were engaged,[100] and they married on August 31, 2014.[101][102][103]

Jen-X: Jenny McCarthy's Open Book, an autobiography ( November 1997, ISBN 978-0-06-039233-8).

Harpercollins

Belly Laughs: The Naked Truth about Pregnancy and Childbirth (DaCapo Press, December 13, 2005,  978-0-7382-0949-4)

ISBN

Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth about the First Year of Mommyhood (Plume, April 4, 2006,  978-0-525-94883-4)

ISBN

Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On (Plume, March 27, 2007,  978-0-525-94947-3)

ISBN

Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism (Plume, September 17, 2007,  978-0-525-95011-0)

ISBN

(Plume, September 23, 2008, ISBN 978-0-525-95069-1)

Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds

Healing and Preventing Autism Co-written with Dr. Jerry Kartzinel. (, March 31, 2009, ISBN 978-0-525-95103-2)

Dutton Adult

Love, Lust & Faking It: The Naked Truth About Sex, Lies, and True Romance (Harper, September 28, 2010,  978-0062012982)

ISBN

Bad Habits: Confessions of a Recovering Catholic (Hyperion, October 2, 2012,  0060392339),

ISBN

List of people in Playboy 1990–1999

at Playboy Online

Jenny McCarthy

at IMDb

Jenny McCarthy

on X

Jenny McCarthy