Jenny McCarthy

Jenny McCarthy
McCarthy at Fame at the Mansion in 2012
Born
Jennifer Ann McCarthy

(1972-11-01) November 1, 1972 (age 52)
Evergreen Park, Illinois, U.S.
Other namesJennifer Wahlberg[1]
Alma materSouthern Illinois University
Occupations
  • Actress
  • model
  • television personality
  • activist
  • writer
Years active1993–present
Television
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1999; div. 2005)​
​
(m. 2014)​
Partner(s)Jim Carrey
(2005–2010)
Children1
Relatives
Signature

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.

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]

  1. ^ Swartz, Tracy (March 17, 2016). "Jenny McCarthy shows off her Donnie tattoos, announces name change". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 17, 2017.
  2. ^ "Jenny McCarthy Profile". E! Online. Retrieved September 19, 2007.
  3. ^ Fallik, Dawn (2008). "After Vaccine-Autism Case Settlement, MDs Urged to Continue Recommending Vaccines". Neurology Today. 8 (11): 1. doi:10.1097/01.NT.0000324682.98661.5c. S2CID 72003315.
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Greenfeld was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rochman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ "Chelation Therapy for Autism is Quackery". sciencebasedmedicine.org. September 5, 2018. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  7. ^ Sinha, Yashwant; Silove, Natalie; Williams, Katrina (October 7, 2006). "Chelation therapy and autism". BMJ: British Medical Journal. 333 (7571): 756. doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7571.756. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 1592402. PMID 17023484.
  8. ^ Specter, Michael (July 15, 2013). "Jenny McCarthy's Dangerous Views". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 3, 2020.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Grove was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "How former 'The View' host Jenny McCarthy became the face of the anti-vaxx movement". Insider. April 29, 2019. Retrieved April 30, 2019.
  11. ^ "No, you haven't been "wrongly branded," Jenny McCarthy". April 14, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
  12. ^ "17 celebrities who are still questioning the science of vaccines". Archived from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
  13. ^ Plait, Phil (April 13, 2014). "Yes, Jenny McCarthy, You Are Anti-Vaccine". Retrieved March 1, 2019.
  14. ^ "Jenny McCarthy tries to mend her anti-vaccine reputation with reality TV. It's too little, too late". Retrieved March 1, 2019.
  15. ^ Gunlock, Julie. "Oprah's 'Truth' and Its Potentially Deadly Consequences". Retrieved August 9, 2019.