Mark Wahlberg

• 1. Introduction

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  Mark Wahlberg was 13 years old when he became an original member of a boy band, and he quit after only a few months. The group carried on without him and became famous. Wahlberg took a very different road. He first became known as a rapper called Marky Mark, then as an underwear model, and then as an actor who was the highest-paid in the world in 2017. He did all of this with a felony conviction on his record. That path raises some questions. How does a boy from Boston reinvent himself so many times? What did he build once he had the money and the fame? And how has he answered for the violence of his teenage years?

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• 2. Boyhood and Violence

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  Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg was born on the 5th of June 1971 in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of nine children. Two of his older brothers also went into entertainment: Robert became an actor, and Donnie became a singer and actor. His mother, Alma Elaine, born a Donnelly, worked as a bank clerk and a nurse's aide. His father, Donald Edmond Wahlberg Sr., was a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War. The marriage ended in 1982, and Mark then divided his time between his parents. His father had Swedish and Irish roots. His mother's side mixed Irish, English and French-Canadian ancestry, and through her he is distantly related to the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was raised Catholic.

  In June 1986, a 15-year-old Wahlberg and three friends chased three black children, throwing rocks and shouting racial slurs. The next day, the group followed a class of mostly black fourth-graders on a beach field trip, including one child from the day before. They yelled epithets, threw rocks, and called over other white males, who joined the harassment. In August 1986, a civil action was filed against Wahlberg for violating his victims' civil rights. He and his friends received an injunction warning that another hate crime would mean jail.

  In April 1988, Wahlberg was 16 when he knocked a middle-aged Vietnamese-American man unconscious on the street with a large wooden stick. Later that day, he punched another Vietnamese-American man, Johnny Trinh, in the eye. Back at the scene of the first assault, under arrest, he made statements to police that investigators recorded. Investigators also noted that he made numerous unsolicited racial remarks. Wahlberg later said he was on PCP at the time. He was arrested for attempted murder. The charges were two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, one count of marijuana possession, and criminal contempt for breaking the 1986 injunction. He pleaded guilty to felony assault and was sentenced to three months in jail. He served 45 days. Wahlberg believed he had left Trinh permanently blind in one eye. Trinh later explained that he had actually lost the eye while serving in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

  Violence returned in August 1992, when Wahlberg fractured the jaw of his neighbor Robert Crehan. Court documents say he kicked Crehan in the face without provocation while another man, Derek McCall, held the victim on the ground. Wahlberg's attorney argued that Crehan had provoked the pair by calling McCall, who is black, a racial slur. The two sides settled the lawsuit, which avoided a criminal trial.

  In 2006, Wahlberg said the right thing would be to meet Trinh and make amends. In 2014, he caused controversy by applying to the State of Massachusetts for a pardon. The BBC reported that the debate raised "difficult issues, with the arguments on both sides being far-reaching and complex". Wahlberg later said he regretted seeking the pardon. His petition was closed after he failed to answer a request from the pardon board about whether he wanted it kept open. In 2016, he said he had met Trinh and apologized "for those horrific acts". Trinh released a public statement forgiving him. The conviction still carries a legal consequence that follows Wahlberg onto film sets, because it prohibits him from handling firearms.

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• 3. Marky Mark

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  The band Mark left was New Kids on the Block, the group of his older brother Donnie. Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, Jonathan Knight and Joey McIntyre all joined after he was gone.

  In 1990, Wahlberg began recording with the dancers and rappers Scott Ross, known as Scottie Gee, and Hector Barros, known as Hector the Booty Inspector. The lineup also included Anthony Thomas, known as Ashley Ace, and Terry Yancey, known as DJ-T. They called themselves Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Their debut album, Music for the People, arrived in 1991 and was produced by Donnie. Its single "Good Vibrations" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and later went platinum. The follow-up, "Wildside", reached number 10 on the Hot 100 and number five on Billboard's Hot Singles Sales chart, and it was certified gold. The group also opened for New Kids on the Block on that band's last tour.

  Not everything worked. The group's own video game, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Make My Video, was a huge flop despite the band's success. The second album, You Gotta Believe, came out in 1992 and sold less well than the first. Only its title track became even a minor hit.

  Hoping to revive his music career, Wahlberg moved to Hamburg. There, East West Records paired him with the producers Frank Peterson and Alex Christensen. He teamed up with the late reggae and ragga singer Prince Ital Joe on an album called Life in the Streets. The record mixed rap vocals, electronic-infused ragga, and what the source describes as "European dancefloor" music. Its singles were "Happy People", "Life in the Streets", "Babylon", and "United", which became a number one hit in Germany. Many of the tracks also appeared in the film Renaissance Man, which starred Wahlberg and Danny DeVito.

  In 1995, he released the single "No Mercy" to support his friend Dariusz Michalczewski, whom he had befriended earlier in the 1990s. Michalczewski also appears in the music video. That same year, Wahlberg and Prince Ital Joe put out The Remix Album on Ultraphonic Records. It collected remixes from their earlier record along with Mark's solo track "No Mercy".

  The German success of the Ital Joe album led Wahlberg to assemble a new act called One Love. He produced it and sometimes sang lead, and he also began work on a third studio album. He appeared on the One Love song "That's the Way I Like It". In 1996, he returned to Hamburg to record the solo single "Hey DJ" with the producer Toni Cottura. Two more solo tracks, "Feel the Vibe" and "Best of My Love", followed in 1997. Even after he had moved on to film, he turned up in a music video in 2000, standing in for the bassist of Black Label Society in "Counterfeit God".

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• 4. The Calvin Klein Body

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  Herb Ritts shot a series of Calvin Klein underwear advertisements in 1992 that showed off Wahlberg's physique more prominently than anything before. His body had first been on display in the "Good Vibrations" music video. Calvin Klein television commercials followed the print campaign. Magazine and television promotions sometimes featured him alone and sometimes alongside the model Kate Moss. The photographer Annie Leibovitz also shot a famous session of Wahlberg in underwear for Vanity Fair's annual Hall of Fame issue.

  The fame spilled into other products. He made a workout video titled The Marky Mark Workout: Form... Focus... Fitness. He also released a self-titled autobiographical picture book, Marky Mark, with photographs by Lynn Goldsmith and statements that were mostly his own.

  The attention was not all admiring. In December 1992, Wahlberg appeared on the British TV show The Word and praised Shabba Ranks, who had said that gay people should be crucified. GLAAD condemned him. It also berated Calvin Klein for using him to promote its products.

  The selling continued long after the underwear ads. In 2012, Wahlberg became a brand ambassador for Marked, a line of sports nutrition supplements from GNC. In March 2017, AT&T announced that he would be its spokesman, and that he would create original content for the company's mobile network division.

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• 5. First Roles

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  In 1993, Wahlberg made his acting debut in the television film The Substitute, and soon afterward he dropped the Marky Mark name. His big screen debut came the next year in the Danny DeVito feature Renaissance Man. A self-described basketball fanatic, he caught critics' attention in The Basketball Diaries (1995), alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, playing Mickey in the adaptation of Jim Carroll's book. His first starring role came in James Foley's thriller Fear (1996).

  Positive reviews followed for Boogie Nights (1997), The Big Hit (1998), Three Kings (1999), The Perfect Storm (2000), and Four Brothers (2005). In the early 2000s, he also appeared in remakes of 1960s films. These were Planet of the Apes (2001), The Truth About Charlie (2002), which remade the 1963 film Charade, and The Italian Job (2003). His work in I Heart Huckabees was voted best supporting performance of the year in the 2004 Village Voice Critics Poll.

  Some of his most talked-about roles are the ones he never played. Wahlberg was originally cast as Linus Caldwell in Ocean's Eleven, but Matt Damon took the part instead. The two men later worked together in The Departed. He was also considered for Brokeback Mountain. The film was first meant to star Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix, his co-star in the 2000 film The Yards, as Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. Both actors were uncomfortable with the sex scenes, and the roles went to Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Both of them were nominated for Academy Awards.

  In 2006, he starred in the football drama Invincible, based on the true story of the bartender Vince Papale. That same year, he played Sean Dignam in Martin Scorsese's thriller The Departed. Dignam is an unpleasant, foul-mouthed Massachusetts State Police staff sergeant. The role brought an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe nomination in the same category, and a National Society of Film Critics award. It also reunited him with DiCaprio.

  For the 2007 film Shooter, he attended long-range shooting training at the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute near Pahrump, Nevada. On his second day, he hit a target at 1,100 yards, a feat that usually takes weeks. He had said in several interviews that he would retire at 40 to focus on parenthood and professional golf. In early 2007, he dropped the golf part, saying that "his golf game is horrible". That year, he also starred opposite Phoenix in We Own the Night, about a family of police officers in New York City.

  M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, with Wahlberg as Eliot Moore, premiered in theaters on the 13th of June 2008. The same year, he played the title role in Max Payne, based on the video game. While promoting it, he fell into a playful feud with Andy Samberg of The Lonely Island. Samberg had performed an impression of Wahlberg in a Saturday Night Live sketch called "Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals". Wahlberg later appeared in a follow-up sketch that parodied the original, Samberg's impression, and his own threats to Samberg. In 2009, he played Jack Salmon, the father of the protagonist Susie, in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones.

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• 6. Blockbusters and Comedies

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  In 2010, Wahlberg appeared in three very different films. He played opposite Steve Carell and Tina Fey in the romantic comedy Date Night. He starred with Will Ferrell in the buddy cop film The Other Guys. And he starred with Christian Bale in the boxing drama The Fighter. For The Fighter, he portrayed Micky Ward and earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. As co-producer, he was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. That same year, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

  Comedy became a pillar of the decade. Seth MacFarlane's hit Ted arrived in 2012, with a sequel in 2015 in which Wahlberg reprised his role. He starred with Ferrell again in Daddy's Home in 2015 and its 2017 sequel. In 2012, he also played a former criminal in the action thriller Contraband.

  In 2013, he starred as the Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell in the war film Lone Survivor, based on Luttrell's 2007 book of the same name. The film was a commercial success with mostly positive reviews, and critics praised his performance. That year, he also appeared in the true crime film Pain & Gain with Dwayne Johnson, and in the action comedy 2 Guns with Denzel Washington. In 2014, he starred in a remake of The Gambler, the 1974 James Caan film that was loosely inspired by a Dostoyevsky novella.

  He also headlined two Transformers films, Age of Extinction in 2014 and The Last Knight in 2017. In 2016, he made two films with the director Peter Berg. Deepwater Horizon dealt with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Patriots Day dealt with the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

  In 2018, his pay on All the Money in the World set off a gender pay gap controversy. He earned $1.5 million for the reshoots, while his co-star Michelle Williams received less than $1,000 for the same work. Wahlberg donated the money to the Time's Up initiative, a movement against sexual harassment that Williams co-founded. The same year, he starred in the family comedy-drama Instant Family and produced and starred in the espionage film Mile 22.

  In 2020, he appeared in the Netflix film Spenser Confidential and in the animated movie Scoob!, his first voice acting role. In 2022, he starred in Uncharted as Victor Sullivan, although he had been cast years earlier to play Nathan Drake. His recent films include The Family Plan (2023), with a sequel in 2025, Arthur the King and The Union (both 2024), and Flight Risk (2025).

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• 7. Producer and Entrepreneur

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  Entourage, the HBO comedy-drama that ran from 2004 to 2011, was loosely based on Wahlberg's own experiences in Hollywood. He was an executive producer and appeared in it, and a follow-up film arrived in 2015. He served as executive producer on four more HBO projects: the period crime drama Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014), the comedy-dramas How to Make It in America (2010-2011) and Ballers (2015-2019), and the documentary McMillions (2020).

  Not every production landed. Breaking Boston, a reality show he produced in 2014, was pulled off the air after its premiere drew only 311,000 viewers. A better bet was Wahlburgers. He co-owns the restaurant chain with his brothers Donnie and Paul. It was Mark's idea to grow Paul's restaurant in Hingham, Massachusetts into a full chain and to promote it with a reality show. He co-starred in the series and executive-produced one episode.

  In July 2013, Wahlberg bought an equity interest in the cricket team Barbados Tridents. His friend Ajmal Khan, the club's chairman and founder of the Caribbean Premier League, had introduced him to the game. At the announcement, Wahlberg said, "I am a huge cricket fan now." In 2015, he recruited the rapper Sean Combs and the billionaire Ronald Burkle to invest with him in Aquahydrate, a bottled water brand he had discovered. Together the three men own a majority stake. In 2016, he and the former GNC executive Tom Dowd launched the sports nutrition company Performance Inspired. In February 2017, he joined a $6 million funding round for StockX, a sneaker resale marketplace. In March 2019, he bought a stake in the F45 fitness franchise, and in 2023 he became Chief Brand Officer for F45 Training.

  The most visible expansion came in Ohio. On the 20th of July 2018, Wahlberg and his business partner Jay Feldman announced they had bought Bobby Layman Chevrolet in Columbus, which was renamed Mark Wahlberg Chevrolet. In March 2020, the local ABC affiliate WSYX reported that the Haydocy Buick-GMC dealership across the street had filed paperwork to rename itself Mark Wahlberg Buick-GMC. The deal became official on the 29th of June 2020, and it included Haydocy's Airstream and RV dealership in the former Oldsmobile showroom next door. Next came Jack Maxton Chevrolet in nearby Worthington, their fourth Columbus-area dealership. A fifth, in Avon in Greater Cleveland, opened in July 2021.

  In 2021, Wahlberg and his producing partner and manager Stephen Levinson launched Ballers Report, an online platform of business, entertainment and sports articles, videos and podcasts. It was a spin-off of their HBO series Ballers. That year, he also invested in the tequila brand Flecha Azul.

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• 8. Faith and Family

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  Wahlberg started dating Rhea Durham in 2001. They had three children in the first seven years of their relationship. They married on the 1st of August 2009 at the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills, near their home. Five months after the wedding, in January 2010, they had another child.

  On the 11th of September 2001, Wahlberg was booked on American Airlines Flight 11. The day before, he changed his plans and flew to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival. In a 2012 interview, he said, "If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did." He added that there would have been a lot of blood in the first-class cabin before he told everyone to relax because they would land safely. Family members of those killed on the flight expressed outrage, and he apologized.

  Wahlberg has described his Catholic faith as "the most important part" of his life, and he goes to Mass twice on Sundays. He also fervently supports same-sex marriage, despite the Church's opposition. In September 2015, he apologized to Pope Francis for the crude jokes in the film Ted. In a 2017 interview with Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, he said he had sought forgiveness from God for playing a porn star in Boogie Nights. He later told Andy Cohen's radio show that the interview was a joke taken too seriously. In 2023, he said the Lenten practices of fasting and prayer were meaningful to him, and he described using the Hallow prayer app.

  In May 2001, he established the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation to raise and distribute money for youth service and enrichment programs. He is also active with the Good Shepherd Center for Homeless Women and Children. In 2022, Wahlberg and his family left Hollywood and moved to Las Vegas.

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