Jenny McCarthy opened up about getting bullied in high school and how she didn’t want her loved ones to get involved.
“I went to an all-girls Catholic school and I really liked hair and makeup. I had my big giant 80s hair, my blonde hair down to my butt, it was permed and lots of makeup,” McCarthy, 51, said on the Thursday, April 4, episode of “The Coop With Kit” podcast. “When you go to an all-girls school, that’s not appreciated.”
McCarthy shared that several girls in her school were not impressed and took action against her.
“It was very scary because they would wait for me after school,” she recalled. “And they did light my hair on fire at one point.”
The former Playboy model shared that her tormentors would also come to her home to mess with her and pull pranks on her. Despite struggling with the bullies, McCarthy decided to keep the situation to herself.
“I just bottled it all up because I was too embarrassed. I thought my mom would think I’m a loser,” she confessed on Thursday. “Plus I’m a person who doesn’t like empathy. I didn’t like people feeling sorry for me because I felt like I could handle anything.”
McCarthy confessed that since her family struggled financially throughout her childhood, she didn’t want to add more stress for her parents.
“I didn’t want to be a burden anymore,” she said. “My mom was always stressed about how we were going to put food on the table so to come home and burden her more, it’s maybe a middle child thing.”
Looking back on it, McCarthy admitted that the bullying taught her “resilience” and how to not take things so personally which helped when she arrived in Hollywood. The actress admitted that she had an “armor” in place that didn’t start to melt away until she met her husband, Donnie Wahlberg.
“Once I knew Donnie was a safe space, my whole life changed,” she said. “Maybe that’s why I’m peaceful now because I was able to comfort that little girl by taking off the armor and telling her, ‘You’re in a safe place now.’”
Wahlberg, 54, and McCarthy tied the knot in 2014 and became a blended family. The New Kids on the Block singer shares two sons, Xavier and Elijah, with ex-wife Kim Fey. McCarthy, for her part, is mother of son Evan whom she welcomed with ex-husband John Mallory Asher.
