Donnie Wahlberg told TV Insider that the executive producer of “Blue Bloods,” Kevin Wade, once wanted Jenny McCarthy to appear on the show. He thought she would be a perfect fit for the role of Danny Reagan’s former high school girlfriend, Marianne Romano, in the 2013 episode “Growing Boys.” But McCarthy had no interest in playing a former lover of her then-boyfriend (Seems like tempting fate, right?). “We had just started dating publicly, so to her credit, Jenny turned it down,” said Wahlberg. “She didn’t want it to be disruptive for the audience.” In other words, she saved the show from a “Gigli” situation where viewers couldn’t stay engaged with what they were watching because the real-life relationship between the two actors was too distracting (Well, that was one of the problems with the Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck movie, anyway). The ex-girlfriend role went to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star Charisma Carpenter instead.
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If he and his wife are going to appear together on TV in some capacity, Wahlberg believes that drama isn’t their ideal genre. “Jenny always said we should do a comedy together,” the actor shared. “Right now, we’re developing non-scripted shows. Our goal is to cohost a game show.” Per Deadline, the couple launched their own company, Work Baby Productions, and landed a development deal with Lionsgate in 2022. However, its focus was on unscripted projects, such as the 2023 autism documentary “Spellers” that they executive produced.
