Actress and host Jenny McCarthy is finally emerging from a harrowing year of health troubles — including nine mouth surgeries, a jawbone infection, and bizarre growths on her eyeballs — and is looking forward to a normal Thanksgiving with her husband.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE on Wednesday, Nov. 26, McCarthy said the nightmare began after a ceramic dental implant failed.
What started as a routine procedure quickly spiraled into a chronic infection that slowly ate away at her jawbone.
“My teeth were falling out, implants falling out. They finally had to dig into my jawbone and chipped away, and found I had a deep bone infection. I’ve been on antibiotics for a year, and have had to eat soft foods only,” she bravely told the outlet.
As the infection worsened, McCarthy faced a cascade of complications: multiple surgeries, long-term antibiotics, extreme pain, and forced weeks of soft-food-only meals.
Then, in a deeply unsettling twist, she noticed growths forming on her eyeballs — a rare complication she says was directly linked to the dental infection.
“I’ve had nine surgeries this year, on my mouth,” she told the outlet. “I had one infection that turned into another and another, and then I had these growths show up on my eyeballs.”
The health crisis took a visible toll: in photos from a recent holiday card sent out with her husband Donnie Wahlberg, McCarthy looked significantly slimmer — a result, she says, of restricted eating due to the constant oral pain.
McCarthy Is Happy to Be on the Mend
Still, McCarthy is optimistic she’s finally turning a corner. “As of now, I’m able to chew again,” she said, though she admitted that recovery was repeatedly interrupted by flare-ups.
Now, with surgeries behind her and antibiotics drawing to a close, McCarthy is ready to return to one of life’s simple pleasures: Thanksgiving dinner.
She told People she is looking forward to spending the holiday with Wahlberg in Chicago and cooking a full turkey for the first time in months.
“I think I’m past the storm,” she added. “I’m about to chow down!”
She added that the two have incredibly busy schedules, making it difficult to get together.
“It’s been a little tricky-wicky getting together,” the 53-year-old told the outlet.
“I’ve been shooting ‘The Masked Singer’ in Los Angeles, he’s been in Canada with ‘Boston Blue.’ So it’s been tricky and difficult, which means Thanksgiving and Christmas will mean more to us than ever this year,” she added.
A Look Back: From MTV Host to Reality-TV Fame
McCarthy’s public career began in her 20s, when she posed for Playboy.
Afterward, she co-hosted MTV’s dating show “Singled Out” in 1995, which was a role that helped make her a familiar face to young audiences.
McCarthy told Us Weekly in June of 2025 how she landed the hosting gig. She went through an audition that had hundreds lined up for it.
She said she got it through her sense of humor. “I leaned all the way into self-deprecating humor, went full goofball and made it clear I wasn’t intimidated by the guys — I could dish it out as much as they could.”
Comments
Jenny McCarthy Contracts Infection Causing Her Teeth to Fall Out