Donnie Wahlberg Says Fame Left Him Empty Until He Accepted Jesus as His Savior

Michael Foust

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By Michael Foust, Crosswalk.com

Donnie Wahlberg says in a new interview that fame never brought lasting joy and that he only found peace in recent months after committing his life to Christ.

Wahlberg is best known to today’s audiences for his on-screen roles in projects such as Blue Bloods and Boston Blue, but he first rose to international fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a member of New Kids on the Block. The group’s popularity has surged again in recent months through its Las Vegas residency.

He credits the faith of his wife, actress and model Jenny McCarthy, with helping lead him to faith.

Donnie Wahlberg Says He’s Given His Life to Jesus

“I had just finished creating the New Kids Las Vegas show and being involved in creating this new spin off TV show that I'm the star of … To the outside world, it's like you are at the top, and I felt at the bottom. I talked to… pic.twitter.com/u5bWM7IDt4
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“Jenny and I Bible study together, we pray together, we do all the things,” he said on The George Janko Show.

But for much of his adult life, Wahlberg said, he was hollow despite his fame. He grew up Catholic but remembers realizing, “I'm missing something, you know, missing a connection.”

“I got famous at, like, 19-20 years old. … it instantly became this thing where I was, like, held up on this pedestal to everybody,” he said, describing instances when adults much older than him would ask him for advice.

“I'm like, ‘What do I know?’ I'm in a boy band. But then I'm also a people pleaser, right? I want to fix everyone's problems inherently. So now I'm like, well, I’ve got to have all the answers. And I literally have walked around for the last 37-38 years thinking I have all the answers – and it's been so difficult in the last year to realize I don't, I don't have them all.”

To the outside world, Wahlberg said, he appeared to have a perfect life – a successful career in the public eye with a wife and children.

“Everything to the outside to everyone looks perfect,” he said. “And I was empty. I was empty without Him.”

That searching for purpose led him to a conversation with his wife one morning, shortly after he had finished work helping create the New Kids on the Block Las Vegas residency, The Right Stuff.

“And I sat down with my wife one morning,” he told Janko. “... And to the outside world, it's like, you are at the top – and I felt at the bottom. And I talked to my wife, and I said, I have to connect with Jesus. I have to give my life to Him now. And she was like, ‘Of course.’”

Asked by Janko why he would get into heaven, Wahlberg answered simply, “because Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior – and it’s by His grace.”