A one of a kind relationship! Donnie Wahlberg may have felt a spark as soon as he met Jenny McCarthy in 2012, but it wasn’t until they reconnected on her show one year later that he made a move.
In 2014, McCarthy and Wahlberg tied the knot and offered fans a look at their relationship on A&E’s reality show Donnie Loves Jenny, which aired from 2015 to 2016. As the pair found themselves blending their families together, Wahlberg gushed about how amazing McCarthy was to his children.
“Besides being the best wife that I could have ever imagined having, she’s also the best stepmom and mother,” he told Us Weekly in November 2019. “She’s a great partner and to simplify it, having someone to build traditions with my children and it being Jenny is probably the thing I’m most grateful for.”
Wahlberg, who welcomed son Xavier in 1993 and Elijah in 2001 with his ex-wife, Kim Fey, applauded his wife for creating such a family bond between everyone.
“Now our kids are seeing through both rusty and single parents and the struggles we had early on and past relationships now to see us building traditions and building this family together,” he added at the time. “Now our kids can see what that looks like and pass it onto their kids. So it’s something to truly be grateful.”
McCarthy, who welcomed son Evan in 2002 with ex-husband John Mallory Asher, was just as thrilled by how her husband connected with her child.
“There’s no words that actually even come close to the meaning that I feel. I’m most thankful for his unconditional love,” she detailed to Us at the time in a joint interview. “And not only for me though, to my son. Any single mom that knows our story can understand that because I think that’s one of our biggest concerns. Who’s going to love me with me and my child or children. Is there anyone out there, especially with special needs and the fact that this Romeo came along and not only swooped me off my feet, but my son and our combined families love each other.”
Although the pair had such an understanding of one another, the actress opened up about their decision to go to therapy to continue working on their marriage.
“Even Prince Charming and the fairy tale doesn’t come without work,” McCarthy said during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in April 2021. “I loved him so much as soon as I met him, I was like, ‘How do I not mess this up? I’m going to ask him, before we even have our first fight, if we can go to therapy together. He might think I’m crazy, but I want to be able to figure out some tools and discover how we both fight. Do both of us shut down if we’re mad at each other, or does one need to communicate?’”
The model admitted that getting that help allowed for their relationship to thrive even more.
“And by sitting down with a therapist, and us figuring out, ‘Oh, that’s what you do when you fight — this is what I do.’ And then the therapist gave us tools to say, ‘OK, when this happens, this is what you do,’” she shared.
Sign up for Us Weekly’s free, daily newsletter and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more!
Scroll down to relive McCarthy and Wahlberg’s love story: