Watch: Jenny McCarthy Talks About Her Past Abusive Relationship and How It Taught Her Self-Love

Jenny McCarthy opens up about her abusive ex and how she learned to love herself after the relationship, E! News reports.

At hair product brand Schwarzkopf Gliss’ “Beautiful by Choice” campaign event on Tuesday, the Sirius XM radio host talked about her past four-year toxic relationship with an unnamed ex-boyfriend.

“What I thought was gonna be a typical relationship, turned into a relationship that you would never think you would get yourself into. Especially me. I mean, I really consider myself to be pretty strong-willed and confident, even back then,” McCarthy said. “But I did find myself being slowly manipulated in to a very, very dark, abusive—verbally abusive—relationship that could have easily killed me.”

She also talked about how the hair product’s slogan empowered her. “It reminded me that beauty is not just a physical attribute, it’s something much more deeper and expands beyond anything on the outside,” she said.

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At the event, McCarthy said her abusive relationship turned her mind “completely inside out.” She no longer had her own thoughts and believed her partner when he called her “worthless, disgusting, talent-less, ugly and fat.”

But she realized that the “four years of excruciating, verbal abuse” taught her how to love herself. “The path to loving yourself requires you to stop putting the blame on others and observe the choices you make that got you there. It wasn’t his job to love me. It was mine,” she said. “So I chose to finally get the hell out of that relationship. I chose to be powerful not powerless.”

The TV Personality spoke about her relationship with husband Donnie Wahlberg. “I got to a place in my life where I learned that I deserved love given the right way, the healthy way, and I wasn’t going to settle anymore until I got The One,” she said, adding she found that in Wahlberg.

Prior to their 2013 wedding, McCarthy dated her manager Ray Manzello for four years in the ’90s, was married to John Mallory Asher for seven years and dated Jim Carrey for five years until 2010.

H/T Instagram / Jenny McCarthy

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