For 14 years, Donnie Wahlberg played Detective Danny Reagan on the CBS cop series Blue Bloods. The hit drama about the Reagans, the fictional first family of the New York Police Department, had a devoted following. “I’ve been stopped on planes, trains, on the street, at basketball games—you name it. Everywhere I went, someone would tell me they loved 'Blue Bloods,'” Wahlberg said.
Now Wahlberg, 56, sits at the dinner table of a new family in “Boston Blue,” a “Blue Bloods” spinoff set in a city the actor knows well.
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Wahlberg grew up the eighth of nine children in Boston's working-class Dorchester neighborhood. “We were poor,” he said. “There were nine kids, a dog, a cat and a grandma in the basement, as well as my mom and dad for a while. Children came and went, ran away, and were arrested. There were quarrels, fights, alcohol. I've definitely learned from some of my older siblings that here's a clear path of what No do”.
Wahlberg says he was the family's peacemaker. “I don't like to use this term (because I don't want to offend my other siblings), but this is one of the adults. My role was to bring everyone together and be happy by any means necessary.”
The discord was not only within the house; Boston in the 1970s was a cauldron of racial tension. As part of a controversial court-ordered desegregation program, students were bused to schools outside their neighborhoods. As a first-grader, Wahlberg was sent from Irish Catholic Dorchester to predominantly Black Roxbury.
He describes it as “probably the most important thing that has ever happened in my life.”
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Because? “Because I don’t know what I wouldn’t have been exposed to if I hadn’t been on those buses. In my neighborhood, if I said, “Yeah, I want to be a singer one day,” I might think about the five neighborhood kids who would punch me in the face. And two of them lived in my house!”
It was after Wahlberg heard hip-hop in the fourth grade that he developed performance-related illness. “I was listening to 'Rapper's Delight,' and I was just starting to write my own raps and write my own songs,” he said.
This helped Wahlberg, when he was just 14 years old, get an audition for Maurice Starr, the local impresario who founded New Edition and was putting together a new band. “Maurice was looking for the equivalent of the Osmonds to the Jacksons,” he said.
What did his parents think? “My mom was very supportive,” he recalls. “And I said, 'Dad, I'm going to start a band.' And he said, “Well, I'll tell you what, if you ever make it and come home and change, I'll kick your ass.”
In 1984, Donnie and his younger brother Mark became the first two members of New Kids on the Block. But the family romance was short-lived as Mark left. “He didn't like to sing,” Donnie said. “He couldn't sing. There's a scene where he sings terrible as Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. It's actually better than what he sang with the New Kids!”
With four other members (including some of Wahlberg's classmates), the group initially struggled to find its footing. But by the late 1980s, they seemed to have the right things:
Although the group was popular, it was far from the critics' choice. “I really struggled with the criticism of the band – we couldn't sing, we were puppets, we were fakes“Wahlberg said.
To feel better, Wahlberg focused on writing and producing not only for New Kids, but also for his brother Mark. They soon had the No. 1 hit “Good Vibrations.”
Donny said, “The careers of Marky Mark, my brother, and his music began when I started to wonder how I could truly express myself.”
Prove yourself… and protect your little brother. “My brother was having problems, and my mom said, 'You need to help your brother and get him off the street,'” Wahlberg said. “I don't like wearing Marky Mark and my brother's career as some kind of badge of honor. He worked very hard for his career. But I really, you know, helped him a lot, and I helped myself in a lot of ways.”
After the New Kids broke up in 1994, Wahlberg turned to acting, finding success in The Sixth Sense. Other roles followed, including Band of Brothers and Boomtown, as well as New Kids on the Block reunions that still keep him busy.
Wahlberg now lives outside of Chicago in the home he shares with his second wife, TV personality Jenny McCarthy.
“We have very similar upbringings and that really helps,” McCarthy said. “I think we're both people pleasers, which can also be bad if you're not in therapy for it!”
“We each went through a lot of therapy, together,” Wahlberg said.
“But we, you know, are the caretakers of our family, and I think that's something to be proud of,” McCarthy added.
They may be living in McCarthy's hometown now, but Boston is always in Wahlberg's heart, as evidenced by his home office, which features memorabilia from Bill Belichick, Bill Russell and Larry Bird.
And then there's his new show, which he wasn't sure he wanted to do after Blue Bloods was cancelled. “I love Blue Bloods,” he said. “I fought tooth and nail to keep it on the air. And here is the opportunity to keep this character alive. And suddenly, when I started looking at him through this lens, I thought: How can I not do this? If all those millions of Blue Bloods fans don't come and love it, then I know we'll give it our best shot.”
Between his television work and concerts, Donnie Wahlberg has a busy life. “People say to me, 'Oh my God, when do you sleep?' Do you want me to complain? Everything I ever wanted, I do. I want to work harder, I want to be worthy of it. I want to be worthy…of the gift that so many people give me with their time. How can I not work as hard as I can to repay this?”
But he says he's just doing what he's always done: “My childhood was spent trying to bring joy and love to a large group of people in the midst of chaos, confusion and pain. And this is what I do for a living right now. This is what I grew up doing.”
WEB EXTRAS: Extended Interview – Donnie Wahlberg (Video)
To watch the “Boston Blue” trailer, click on the video player below:
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The story was produced by Michelle Kessel. Editor: Ed Givnish.
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