Former model and actress turned talk show host and activist Jenny McCarthy has revealed she is recovering from a serious infection that caused her teeth to fall out.
McCarthy, who once had a long term relationship with Jim Carrey before marrying Mark Wahlberg‘s brother Donnie more than decade ago, made the revelation in a new interview with People.
The 53-year-old former star of The View said an infection that began in a ceramic dental implant ended up deep in her jaw bone, resulting in nine surgeries in the space of a year and even growths on her eyeballs.
McCarthy said she had been on antibiotics for a year, and was only able to eat soft food during the ordeal.
“I had one infection that turned into another and another, and then I had these growths show up on my eyeballs,” she said.
“My teeth were falling out, implants falling out.”
She said doctors discovered that she had a deep bone infection after chipping into her jawbone.
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“They finally had to dig into my jawbone and chipped away, and found I had a deep bone infection,” she said.
“But every time we thought it had cleared up, it came back again.
“I’d be in massive pain with my jaw swelling up, and at the same time I was getting these growths popping up on my eyeballs.
“I’ve been pretty unlucky.”
After undergoing a total of nine oral surgeries this year, McCarthy said she was finally on the mend and was “able to chew again”.
“I think I’m past the storm,” she said.
McCarthy, who has been a judge on the US version of The Masked Singer since 2019, said that between her health problems and job, which take her to LA, she and Wahlberg have not been able to spend a lot of time together this year as he had been shooting his police drama, Boston Blue, in Canada.
She admitted it’s been difficult, but they’re making the most of spending time together over Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Their plans will be lowkey, spending time at home in Chicago and just enjoying being together.
McCarthy was raised in Chicago and returned there in 2015, in part to give her son, Evan, a better life.
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Evan, who is now 23, is from her first marriage to actor Mallory Taylor.
When he was three, Evan was diagnosed with autism, and McCarthy has devoted much of her life to finding the cause and treatments for autism, but many of her views are controversial.
She has also written several books, including about parenting a child with autism.
McCarthy dated actor Jim Carrey from 2005 to 2010.
She met Wahlberg in 2012 on the set of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.
He was a guest on her talk show, The Jenny McCarthy Show, a year later and they started dating soon after, before marrying in 2014.
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