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Donnie Wahlberg: How the ‘Blue Bloods’ Actor Makes His Family a Priority While Working

Donnie Wahlberg is a busy man. He works 10-hour days filming Blue Bloods during the week, and when he’s not filming, he’s touring with New Kids on the Block. But despite his constant work schedule, he said his family is his priority. And he does whatever he can to spend every free moment he can with them.

Donnie Wahlberg is married to model and actress Jenny McCarthy. They live together with her two teenage sons from a previous relationship in Chicago, but he films Blue Bloods in New York City. So he works through the week and flies home on the weekends, he told CBS in 2019. But they work in little moments during the week whenever they can.

“Even if I work Thursday and can’t fly home with her [McCarthy spends midweeks on the set of her Sirius show in Manhattan], she’ll book a flight that gives her a couple of hours to spend with me on our set on her way to LaGuardia,” he says. “We — with our sons — really do everything to be together.”

Family Has Always Been First for Donnie Wahlberg

Wahlberg has always felt his family was the most important part of his life, he has said. Wahlberg grew up in the Boston area in a family with nine children.

In fact, he fought to get on to Blue Bloods because the family dinners reminded him so much of his childhood. He said after reading the pilot script, he wanted to get on the show.

“I hadn’t been offered the job yet, so I had to go in and earn it,” Wahlberg told MovieGuide.org. “But I read that scene and it rang so true to my childhood and to my upbringing with all of us sitting around the table arguing and disagreeing and everyone has a different point of view.

“And with this brooding, mustached dad (Tom Selleck) at the head of the table literally shooting that first dinner scene, it took me back to my childhood when my dad sat at the head of the table with his mustache holding court over the table,” he continued. “It just felt so authentic.”

Donnie Wahlberg’s Perfect Day All About Family

In a Q&A for UpRoxx in 2019, Donnie Wahlberg described his perfect day, and it almost all revolves around spending time with his family.

“I would wake up cuddling with my wife,” he told the website. “Take her and our kids and all of their friends out to breakfast at our favorite diner. Get in a quick workout with my wife, while streaming an episode of The Crown. Go golf with my golfing buddies. Meet my wife and kids for dinner. Go to the Hotel Baker in St. Charles [Illinois] for an old-fashioned and my wife’s favorite, a cosmopolitan. Then go back home and get in bed with my wife, where the day started.”

He had recently taken his wife on a special date where he rented out a theater to watch her favorite film.

“I saw two movies in one day. It was The Greatest Showman, which I rented out a theater to show my wife privately because it’s her favorite movie. And we also watched Parasite, which is a Korean film that’s out right now.”