Jenny McCarthy had the perfect idea for how to find love again after she split from her first husband: Get on “The Bachelorette” as the show’s star.
Appearing as a guest on the Wednesday, July 15, episode of the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast, the “Masked Singer” judge and former cohost of “The View” revealed she had her team pitch her to be on one of the show’s earlier seasons. At the time, she was coming off her divorce from director Josh Asher, to whom she was married from 1999 to 2005.
“The Bachelorette” spun off from “The Bachelor” in 2003, with the show’s first three seasons airing from 2003 to 2005. The show’s stars were all women who previously competed on “The Bachelor,” a tradition which would continue until Taylor Frankie Paul’s unaired 2026 season.
McCarthy’s Bachelorette Pitch
Speaking with former Bachelorettes Charity Lawson and Rachel Recchia on their podcast, McCarthy revealed herself to not only be a show superfan, but also a wannabe-star.
“They just started The Bachelorette. I don’t know how many years they were into it and I was newly divorced,” the 53-year-old TV personality explained. “I called my agent, and I said, ‘I want you to call them, and I want you to pitch me as the Bachelorette. I want you to tell them that Jenny McCarthy from MTV’s ‘Singled Out,’ the No. 1 dating show of all time, is single and now wants to be on the show.”
McCarthy, of course, was one of the hosts of MTV’s dating shows alongside Chris Hardwick from 1995 to 1997, before she left and was replaced by Carmen Electra.
“I had no fear, but I was also genuinely looking for love. I was like, ‘I would make the greatest Bachelorette of all time,’” she recalled. “And the show said, ‘We don’t want famous people on the show.’”
As mentioned above, the ABC dating show has typically only cast women who previously appeared on “The Bachelor.” Its first three stars were Trista Rehn, Meredith Phillips, and Jen Schefft.
In hindsight, McCarthy believes that had they cast her, “It would have been the most ultimate Bachelor Nation season of all time.”
“I would’ve had so much fun with those boys. I would have made out with all of them,” she added. “I would have just been, like, so awesome on that show.”
All these seasons later, there still hasn’t been a celebrity version of the show, or at least one that has aired, as “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star Taylor Frankie Paul’s already-filmed season remains in limbo.
“I feel, like, they’re kind of missing out on the celebrity version. They can literally call it the celebrity version of ‘Bachelorette’ because I think they would really, really do [well],” McCarthy added. “They’ve got other celebrity versions of everything else. Why would you [not] do the celebrity version of ‘Bachelorette’? But their loss now because now I’m happily married.”
Following her split from Asher—with whom she shares son Evan—McCarthy found love with actor Jim Carrey. The pair dated from 2005 until 2010, before she began her romance with New Kids on the Block’s Donny Wahlberg in 2013.
She and Wahlberg married in 2014 and have been together ever since.
