Jenny McCarthy wasn’t looking for love when she met her husband, Donnie Wahlberg. During a recent appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” McCarthy told Clarkson that prior to meeting her husband, she had just come off “a slew of uncomfortable and not healthy relationships,” prompting her to “reset” her love life.
She explained, “I’m like, ‘I’m really going to let the universe know I am shutting this down.’ So, I stayed away from any blind dates or any dating, and I really focused on me because I’m like, ‘If I can upgrade me, then I’m going to upgrade the people I surround myself with and who I bring into my life.’ And I told God, I was like, ‘Listen, don’t bring me [a] half-baked guy.’” Until then, she explained, she would always lower her standards to meet the men she was dating at their level but realized it was time for them “to meet me where I’m at.” Due to her break from dating, McCarthy “really wasn’t looking for anyone in particular” when she met Wahlberg.
Instead, she had spent the prior year working on “letting go of the demons, recognizing why I went into those patterns” with men in the first place. She explained to Clarkson, “A lot of it had to do with self-love and loving myself and knowing I was good enough. Then the moment came, and Donnie was on a talk show I had. And I interviewed him, and I was like, ‘Oh wow, he’s funny.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s smart. Oh, he’s hot. Oh, he’s got a good butt. I like him.’ The interview went from six minutes to an hour and a half. The audience and the producers were like, ‘Uh, we gotta go,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m in love.’”
While McCarthy ended up finding her partner in life, she explained the process taught her that although “as humans, we desire companionship” and “someone to share your love” with, she began to understand “you don’t need a lover in your life to have love in your life.” Prior to marrying Wahlberg, McCarthy married actor John Asher from 1999 to 2005. Together, they share their son, Evan, who was born in May 2002. Elseshere in the interview, McCarthy admitted Wahlberg wasn’t always the New Kids on the Block member she had her eye on. “I grew up in a very Catholic family, and I was very scared of anything bad. And Donnie seemed like the real bad boy growing up,” she told Clarkson. “He had the motorcycle. So, I kind of leaned more towards Jonathon. I was just like, I don’t want to go to hell any faster than I already am. I’m going to go for the good boy.”
The Hollywood power couple eventually tied the knot in August 2014 and will be celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary later this year. In an interview with Fox News Digital in January, Wahlberg spoke about their relationship, saying, “We’re proud of the fact that we’re a successful couple,” but they “kind of shudder at the term Hollywood couple.” He explained that being called a Hollywood couple implies they won’t last more than a few years together.