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Top 10 facts about Jenny McCarthy

Jenny McCarthy was born on November 1, 1972, in the Southwest Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park, Illinois. She is famously known to be an American actress, model and television personality. Jenny began her career in 1933 as a nude model for Playboy magazine and was later named their playmate of the year. She parlayed her playboy fame into a television and movie acting career, starting as a co-host on the MTV game show Singled Out from 1995-1997. She also became a co-host of the ABC talk shows The View until 2014.

She has also starred in the eponymous sitcom and various films such as the BASEketball, Scream, Dirty love Santa baby and John Tucker Must Die. Therefore, this article is going to explore more fascinating facts about the actress.  

1 She is an accomplished writer

Jenny McCarthy is the New York Times bestselling author of 30 books on Goodreads with 56230 ratings. Jenny’s most popular books include; Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth About the First Year of Mommyhood, Belly laughs: The Naked Truth About Pregnancy and Childbirth, Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism and Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, marriage and moving on. Jenny has written comedic books for adults and even children and they are easy to access on platforms such as Goodreads. She has also promoted research into environmental causes.

2 She dropped out of school

Jenny McCarthy was schooling at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts Highschool, whose school sweater she donned in the pages of a playboy. She was a cheerleader at Brother Rice High School and St Laurence High School. She then went to Southern Illinois University to study nursing and psychology where she had to, later on, drop out after 2years there due to lack of money. She had to look for ways to earn money and she ended up landing a chance to model for playboy magazine and was eventually named playmate of the year in 1994. She continued to earn acting roles and host television shows from there on.

3 She is an autism activist

She began being an autism activist after his son, Evan was diagnosed with autism in 2005. She has written several books on autism and even served as a spokesperson for Talk About Autism from 2007 to 2008. She has also participated in fundraisers for the non-profit organization to help families that have been affected by autism and also, being the spokesperson for the Generation Rescue Foundation. Jenny has done research into alternative medical treatments for autism and she has promoted the disproven idea that vaccines cause autism. She said that chelation therapy, a quack remedy, helped to treat her son’s autism.

4 She faced opposition posing for the ‘Playboy’ magazine

Jenny began her career as a model when she was offered a sum of US$20,000 by ‘Playboy’ magazine to pose for publication in 1993. She posed wearing her Mother McAuley Liberal Arts Highschool sweater and her publisher, Hugh Hefner appreciated her ‘Catholic school girl’ persona since it set her apart from the others. However, her catholic community in her neighbourhood did not appreciate her posing for a ‘playboy’ magazine and even they lectured her as well as her close family members about the divine punishment they would face afterlife. McCarthy disclosed that her neighbours had thrown eggs at her house and her sisters were abused at school. However, despite the several challenges Jenny proceeded to become a very highly successful model throughout the years.

5 She was accused of being against children’s vaccination

Arguments have been generated over time that McCarthy was completely against children being vaccinated and linking immunization shots to the development of autism. However, she refused these claims and wrote an essay published on April 12, 2014, for the Chicago Sun-Times where she spoke about questioning whether physicians should give multiple vaccinations to infants simultaneously instead of spacing them out.

She disputes the anti-vaccine label, saying she prefers the term “pro-safe-vaccine-schedule”, a term that has been disapproved making her the nation’s most well-known purveyor of anti-vaxxer ideology and the face of the anti-vax-movement.

6 His husband, Asher directed some of her films

She was married to director John Mallory Asher from 1999 to 2005 and was blessed with a son Evan, in 2002. They worked together in various films such as the Diamonds, dirty love and Thank Heaven. They later on separated and one of the reasons for separation was that John did not support her controversial research into autism. McCarthy began dating actor Jim Carrey after separating from Mallory.

They separated after five years and in 2012 the model was spotted with Mark Wahlberg after she had kept her relationship private and only announced it on the Ellen DeGeneres show. The couple got engaged and they got married on August 31, 2014.

7 She is related to Melissa McCarthy

Jenny McCarthy is not the only star in her family, she is related to none other than Hollywood A-lister Melissa McCarthy who is Jenny’s older cousin. Many fans are unaware of their family connection because they don’t make public appearances together. Jenny and her cousin live in opposite worlds and it was Jenny who got the Ghostbusters star, her first acting job with a cameo on MTV’s sketch series, The Jenny McCarthy show. Melissa on the other side went to find fame as Sookie St. James on Gilmore Girls and has starred in a string of blockbuster hits ever since, including 2011 Bridemaids- for which she won her first Oscar nomination for- and 2018′ Can You Ever Forgive Me which earned her a second Oscar nomination.

8 She wore the wildest outfit to the Emmy Awards

McCarthy never shies off from iconic outfits and her 2019 Emmy Awards was no exception. She wore a blue off-the-shoulder dress accessorized with a studded belt and heeled booties which made her look so stunning and iconic as she stepped out on the purple carpet. The high-low skirt accentuated her footwear, lending the entire ensemble some major tough-girl attitude. His husband, Blue Bloods star Donnie Wahlberg did not walk her down the purple carpet on that day but he wrote on Twitter that even though he wasn’t by her side, he was going to tune in for her Emmys Interviews, which ended up sparking more than a few awkward moments among the fans.

9 McCarthy has been a Judge of the Masked Singer show

Since 2019, McCarthy has been a judge on the Fox musical competition show The Masked Singer which is an American reality singing competition which features celebrities singing songs while wearing head-to-toe costumes and face masks concealing their identities. It employs panellists who guess the celebrities’ identities by interpreting clues provided to them throughout each season. McCarthy appeared in each episode accompanied by other judges and they voted alongside an audience for their favourite singer after they have all performed. The least popular singer in the competition is eliminated, taking off their mask to reveal their identity.

10 McCarthy has been a co-host of several shows

She began as a co-host on the MTV game show Singled Out from 1995 to 1997. Single Out is an American dating game show created by Burt Wheeler and Sharon Sussman. She then hosted her television talk show The Jenny McCarthy show which is an American pop culture-based talk show television program that premiered on February 2013 and was aired on VH1. Later on, she became a co-host of the ABC talk shows The View which is an American talk show that was created by broadcast journalist Barbara Walters. It features a multi-generational panel of women who discuss sociopolitical and entertainment news as well as interview celebrities and politicians.