The Moment
Jenny McCarthy is out here saying the quiet part loud about long-term love: sometimes your soulmate sounds like a Harley in a tunnel.
On a recent appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark, the 53-year-old TV personality and former model opened up about what she calls the “challenges” in the bedroom with husband Donnie Wahlberg, 56. And no, not those challenges – the snoring kind.
After calling Donnie “the nicest human being you will ever meet,” she admitted there’s one area where he’s less than perfect. His snoring is so intense, she said, that she’s basically turned their bed into a DIY sound studio.
Jenny explained that she’s “built in these insulations” to survive the night: she sleeps in giant headphones and creates what she jokingly called a “Great Wall of China” out of pillows between them. Even then, she says she can sometimes hear him over the soothing ocean sounds playing in her ears. When it gets especially loud, she just gives him a tap and tells him to roll over.
“I will say it works,” Jenny added, insisting her noise-cancelling setup mostly does the job.
For context, the couple – who met after both went through divorces and married in 2014 – has also been very open about how they work to keep their marriage “hot,” including confessing in a past interview that they love sneaking off together at parties to steal a little private time.
The Take
I love that this story sounds like a punchline but is actually a pretty realistic blueprint for a long-term relationship in your 50s.
Jenny and Donnie are basically saying: yes, he snores like a freight train, and no, we’re not letting that ruin our fun. Instead of filing it under “marriage misery,” Jenny turns it into material – and then quietly invests in industrial-strength headphones.
There’s something very grown-up about it. Not glamorous, but grown-up. It’s the stage of love where you know your partner’s worst sleep habit, bathroom products, and weird snack preferences – and you’re still sneaking off together at Christmas parties. That’s not bedroom disaster, that’s relationship maintenance.
Also, let’s be honest: this is the opposite of the “sleep divorce” trend you hear about, where couples move to separate rooms over snoring or mismatched schedules. Jenny is saying, in her very Jenny way, we’re staying in the same bed, but I will be armoring up like I’m flying coach next to a crying baby.
Some people will roll their eyes and call it oversharing. But for a big chunk of long-married folks, this is extremely familiar territory. There’s always something: snoring, night sweats, late-night scrolling, early alarms. The real story here is that they’re tackling it like a team and still talking openly about intimacy a decade into marriage.
If anything, the combination of “Great Wall of China” pillow forts and “let’s sneak off to the basement bathroom” tells you exactly why they’ve lasted: they treat the annoying stuff like a joke and the romantic stuff like a priority.
In marriage terms, that’s like choosing to laugh at the leaky faucet while still lighting candles at dinner. Not everyone can pull it off.
Receipts
Here’s what’s actually on the record – and what isn’t.
Jenny McCarthy reveals major bedroom ‘challenges’ with husband Donnie Wahlberg
From Page Six:
• Jenny McCarthy says Donnie Wahlberg’s snoring presents a “challenge” in their bedroom.
• McCarthy wears headphones nightly to sleep, sometimes still hearing Wahlberg’s snoring.
•… pic.twitter.com/mKkV02IKiL— nuprizm (@nuprizm) January 7, 2026
Confirmed (on-air and in past interviews):
- In a January 2026 appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark, Jenny McCarthy said Donnie Wahlberg’s snoring is a “challenge” in the bedroom and stopped short of calling it a full “problem.”
- She said she sleeps in “giant headphones” every night and joked that she builds a “Great Wall of China” out of pillows between them to block the sound.
- Jenny described playing ocean sounds in her headphones and still sometimes hearing Donnie’s snoring over them, at which point she taps him to roll over.
- She said her noise-cancelling routine “works” for getting through the night.
- Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg met after their divorces, started dating in the early 2010s, and married in 2014.
- In a January 2025 magazine interview, they said they like to sneak off during parties – for example, slipping into a basement bathroom at a Christmas gathering – to keep things “spicy.”
- Donnie has publicly said they “work at keeping it hot” and don’t take their 10-year relationship for granted.
Unverified / Not stated (so far):
- Any medical diagnosis behind the snoring (such as sleep apnea) – neither has mentioned this publicly.
- Whether they’ve ever tried separate bedrooms or “sleep divorcing” – Jenny specifically framed it as coping strategies in the same bed.
- How often the snoring actually disrupts her sleep beyond the anecdotes she shared.
Sources: Jenny McCarthy interview on Live with Kelly and Mark, broadcast Jan. 2026; previously published January 2025 print/online interview excerpts with Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg, as summarized in syndicated entertainment reports.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you haven’t kept up: Jenny McCarthy first broke out in the ’90s as a model and MTV personality, then moved into acting, hosting, and panel work on shows like The Masked Singer. Donnie Wahlberg is best known as a member of New Kids on the Block and as an actor on the long-running police drama Blue Bloods.
Both went through divorces before getting together. They met in the early 2010s, began dating after hitting it off on TV, and married in 2014. Since then, they’ve built a blended family, juggled touring, TV, and podcasting, and made “we’re still obsessed with each other” part of their brand. Public PDA? Constant. Shared TMI about their love life? Also constant.
This latest snoring confession fits right into that pattern: slightly too honest for some, refreshingly real for others.
What’s Next
Is this a one-off funny story, or the start of their next “marriage survival” era? If you know Jenny and Donnie, you know they rarely let a relatable couple issue go to waste. Expect more playful details about how they handle the unsexy parts of midlife partnership – whether that’s snoring hacks, busy schedules, or keeping romance alive when you’ve been together for over a decade.
What might actually come next, beyond the jokes, is more conversation about how couples deal with sleep problems in general. Snoring is incredibly common in long-term relationships, and plenty of people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s are quietly negotiating the same thing without the headphones and punchlines.
If they choose to, Jenny and Donnie are well-positioned to turn this into something more than just a cute anecdote – maybe by talking to experts on one of their platforms, or sharing more practical tips for couples who don’t want to move to separate beds but also don’t want to be awake all night staring at the ceiling.
Until then, Jenny will be over here in her giant headphones, Donnie will be snoring away, and apparently, their marriage will stay exactly what they say it is: noisy, spicy, and very much alive.
Your turn: Would you rather armor up with headphones like Jenny to stay in the same bed, or do you think separate bedrooms are totally fine once snoring becomes a “challenge”?
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