Jenny McCarthy's Super Bowl Plans Include 'Eating Lots of Hot Food Under Lots of Blankets' in Sub-Zero Chicago
The polar vortex sweeping through the Midwest isn’t stopping Jenny McCarthy from celebrating Super Bowl LII at home in Chicago—even if it means doing it without a heater.
“We had the heat go out in the house last night and had no hot water on the coldest night ever,” McCarthy told PEOPLE after broadcasting a live Super Bowl edition of SiriusXM’s The Jenny McCarthy Show in Atlanta on Friday morning. “Our dog Lumpy’s paw even froze to the ground! He got out of the car and took one, two, three steps and froze right there on the spot. We had to pour hot water on the ground just so we could get him loose. It’s just crazy!”
Extreme weather has been hitting parts of the U.S. this week. Areas from the Dakotas to western New York are experiencing some of the coldest temperatures to hit the region in more than two decades, according to The Weather Channel. On Wednesday morning, it was -23°F in Chicago, and the National Weather Service recorded -30°F in Wisconsin.
“I grew up in Chicago so I know what winters are like but I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” said McCarthy, who posted a photo showing a “Feels Like -52°F” temperature reading in Geneva, Ill. “It’s like you’re breathing in fire. Every breath is painful and your skin feels like someone is smacking it—like, it burns as soon as you walk outside.”
Despite the brutal conditions back home—and a brief respite in a chilly-but-warmer 32°F Atlanta—McCarthy said she planned to “get right back on a plane” to Chicago after the show so she and husband Donnie Wahlberg could “get the house back in working order” and watch the big game together. “On Sunday, we’ll be huddling together on the couch eating lots of hot food under lots of blankets—and seriously thinking about moving to Florida,” she joked.
This year marks McCarthy’s fifth year broadcasting from Super Bowl’s Radio Row, but with one noticeable difference: Wahlberg wasn’t able to travel with her and be her co-host as with previous shows.
“Donnie is such a devoted Patriots fan and really wanted to be here but someone had to be the adult,” she said. “He’s such a great caretaker and he said, ‘Listen, one of us needs to be home so I’m going to do the duty and get the house back together and take care of the kids.’ The kids have been out of school all week. Since the house basically broke yesterday, he felt like he needed to be the man of the house and take care of the family and let mommy go to work.”
And work she does: McCarthy also stars as a judge on FOX’s The Masked Singer, which was just picked up for a second season. “It’s just the most fun show to be a part of,” she said. “When I was first offered the show I watched the original Korean version to see what it was all about, and I just knew that this is going to be so great. It’s something different, it has celebrities, it has mystery, and it’s a show the whole family can watch together.”
The best part for McCarthy, though, is the enthusiastic interactions of the fans: “I love reading all the Tweets from people trying to guess the celebrity—they’re all over the place. Everyone thinks they know who it is and they all sound so sure about it and Tweet with such conviction—I love that, even when they’re really way-off wrong.”
The Jenny McCarthy Show airs weekdays at 10 a.m. EST on SiriusXM Stars channel 109.
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