Jenny McCarthy Opens Up About a Two-Year Health Ordeal & the Unexpected Way She Is Coping

Nov 04, 2026 by apost team

Jenny McCarthy does not have a conventional sleeping arrangement right now, and she is the first to say so. “I live in a tent,” she said. “And I’m not even joking.”

The “Masked Singer” judge shared the unusual detail on her podcast, “The Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg Show,” in an episode about a health ordeal she described as “absolutely fricking insane.” It began, she said, with something small: “a freaking toothache.”

From there, the symptoms multiplied. McCarthy said she developed a jawbone infection caused by “three little toxic pools hiding underneath” her wisdom teeth, along with an infected root canal that she did not realize would not last forever. She also described growths on her eyelids that kept returning, and a stretch of what she called “living hell” in her mouth. The experience felt endless. By her telling, it began to seem like “surgery number 25,500.”

The breakthrough came when a functional medicine doctor suggested she be tested for mold. McCarthy said the results were stark and that the doctor told her: “Jenny, you’ve got serious mold.” The diagnosis was mycotoxin poisoning, which she said explained why her body would not heal.

McCarthy said she began a “mold protocol” of vitamins and treatments, and that her home was professionally remediated. But the experience left her wary of every indoor space. “I am paranoid now about basically sleeping anywhere,” she said, and so she moved into a tent in her yard. She showed viewers the setup, noting that it has a rain-proof cover for safety. She said she is still in the middle of her detox and “too paranoid to honestly live anywhere else other than a tent.”

McCarthy believes she knows where the exposure began. She traced it to her “very, very old” dressing room, which she said “had a dampness to it” and an air conditioning system “from 1950.” The makeup artist who works exclusively with her in that room, she added, also ended up with mold poisoning. In her view, that detail pointed away from coincidence.

Her doctor’s warning was serious. McCarthy said she was told she has a certain type of mold that can cause seizures. She described mold toxins as something most people with healthy immune systems can handle, though she said her own immune system, along with conditions including leaky gut and candida, left her more vulnerable.

The treatment is not quick. She has said she was months into a “heavy-duty mold protocol” that could last up to a year, a routine that shapes how she eats, sleeps, and spends her days.

The emotional toll, she said, has been significant. “They talk about people with mold poisoning having PTSD,” she said. “I’m still in the traumatic part. I’m not even in the ‘post’ part yet, because I feel like now everything is mold. I can detect mold, honestly, like a mold dog.”

Her husband, Donnie Wahlberg, was working in Canada while she lived in the tent, and she has credited him for his support through the ordeal.

The details of her diagnosis and treatment are McCarthy’s own account of her health. What is clear is how seriously she takes it. She has described a home she no longer trusts and a sense of humor that has survived all of it. “That’s right, living in a tent!” she told viewers, laughing at the very idea.

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Are you a fan of Jenny McCarthy? Do you think her honesty about this health ordeal is one of the most candid things she has shared? Let us know in the comments and pass this on to your family, friends, and other fans out there!