The 12 craziest Mark Wahlberg facts

FROM his dodgy past to his claim that he could have stopped 9/11 ... You’d be surprised what you don’t know about Mark Wahlberg.

American rapper and actor, Marky Mark, aka Mark Wahlberg, circa 1991. (Photo by Tim Roney/Getty Images)

THE Entourage movie is in cinemas now, continuing the eight-season HBO series based around its producer Mark Wahlberg’s early career and relationship with his mates.

You know Mark Wahlberg? Ted and Transformers star, former Funky Bunch leader, famous underwear wearer.

But you’d be surprised what you don’t know about the buff brah from Baaaahston.

Read on to learn the infinite mysteries of the Wahlberg:

He’s a big-shot producer now:

He does more producing than acting these days. Since 2010, Wahlberg has been a producer or executive producer on 19 projects — compared to an actor in just 17. His TV production credits include the HBO series In Treatment, How to Make It in America, Entourage (of course), and the upcoming Ballers. Wahlberg’s also produced most of the recent movies he’s starred in, including The Fighter, Lone Survivor, and ... Entourage (of course).

Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale in a scene from The Fighter.

He’s so, so far from being an only child:

Everyone with a pulse knows that Mark’s older brother is New Kids on the Block member Donnie Wahlberg — Mark was even originally in NKOTB before spinning off as Marky Mark. But Mark also had seven other older siblings — and three half-siblings: Robert Wahlberg, Paul Wahlberg, Arthur Wahlberg, Jim Wahlberg, Debbie Wahlberg, Tracey Wahlberg, Michelle Wahlberg, Scott Wahlberg, Buddy Wahlberg, and Donna Wahlberg.

At this point, “Wahlberg” doesn’t look like a real name anymore. Also, here are some more siblings that I just made up, for good measure: Robb Wahlberg, Arya Wahlberg, Sansa Wahlberg, Bran Wahlberg, Rickon Wahlberg, Kourtney Wahlberg, Khloe Wahlberg, Kendall Wahlberg, and Kylie Wahlberg.

He was an anti-drug rapper:

Marky Mark’s squeaky-clean hit Good Vibrations memorably states, “Drug-free, so put the crack up/no need for speed/I’m anti/d-r-u-g-g-i-e, my/body is healthy/my rhymes make me wealthy/and the Funky Bunch helps me/to bring you a show with no intoxication.”

Only five years prior to that, he had been charged with dealing, although considering these next two Mark Wahlberg Facts™, that was the least of his juvenile delinquency.

Get a belt Mark.

Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch.

He was a *really* tough 13-year-old:

In a 2001 Vanity Fair profile, Wahlberg explains that in his early teens, shortly after his parents’ divorce, he was out of school and rolling around the streets of his rough neighbourhood of Dorchester selling marijuana and using cocaine. His local priest Father Flavin recalled how Wahlberg would roll by his church in various stolen cars and told 60 Minutes that he glimpsed young Mark’s potential as an actor after watching him con judges with sob stories after his numerous arrests.

He was a really messed up teenager (like, hate crimes-level messed up):

In his mid-teens, Wahlberg was charged with a series of racially-motivated attacks in Dorchester; the documents are collected here by The Smoking Gun. In 1986, when he was 14, Wahlberg and friends were sued by the Massachusetts Attorney General for yelling threats and racial slurs at three black schoolkids and then throwing rocks at them and their teacher the next day, injuring two girls.

Two years later, Wahlberg beat a Vietnamese man named Thahn Lam with a five-foot-long stick. He then ran away and put his arm around another Vietnamese man, Hoa Trinh, in order to hide from police — then struck Trinh in the face after the cops passed. (It’s been reported a lot that Wahlberg blinded Trinh in one eye, but in this December 2014 Daily Mail interview Trinh says damage to his eye was from the Vietnam War.)

Wahlberg was apprehended that night and bragged about his assault of the first man while spouting racial slurs such as “slant-eyed g**ks”. During the arrest for attempted murder police found a small amount of marijuana on him, and Wahlberg eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal contempt and served 45 days of a 90-day sentence. After getting out, the Marky Mark origin story begins: after being “scared straight” by jail, he turns his life around with rapping and wearing underwear.

He has a restaurant chain named ... Wahlburgers:

In 2011, together with Donnie and his other brother Paul (a real-life chef), Mark launched a restaurant known as Wahlburgers (Do you get it? Do you get the joke?). The original location in Hingham, Massachusetts was joined by one in Toronto in 2014, and the brothers have plans to roll the chain out across America and probably the rest of Planet Earth, moving into the “better burger” market occupied by the likes of Whataburger and Five Guys. According to the Wahlbergs, they plan to open 66 more Wahlburgers in the coming years — including 20 in New York, 20 in the Middle East, seven in Florida, and more in Philly, Boston, Vegas, and various airports.

This is called the "Our Burger" at Wahlburgers.

He has a reality show ... also named Wahlburgers:

Wahlberg created and executive produces (told you he loved producing) an A&E reality show about the restaurant and their trials, tribulations, and everyday life in launching and operating it. The main focus is Paul, the “big brother worrywart,” a “neurotic chef who is mocked and terrorised by his cooler, easygoing famous brothers.” Mark’s Entourage-esque childhood friends also make appearances — in one episode, his buddy Nacho comes into the restaurant and starts eating as many burgers as he can until Paulberg gets upset and makes him stop. The episodes have titles like “The Great Wahlberg of China,” “An American Wahlberg in London,” and “Pauliday.” The show was nominated for an Emmy in the Unstructured Reality Program category.

He claims that he could have stopped 9/11:

Wahlberg was scheduled to fly from Boston to LA on American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11, 2001 — but ended up taking a private charter to Toronto. In 2012, he told Men’s Journal that if he had been on that flight, he would have single-handedly stopped 9/11.

The full quote: “If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’”

Wahlberg had said even years before that interview that he would have tried to fight the hijackers — and that he’s had “probably over 50 dreams about it.”

Wahlberg’s Ted and Ted 2 co-star Seth MacFarlane was also scheduled to fly on Flight 11 that day, but overslept.

He’s a part-owner of a caribbean cricket team:

In 2013, Wahlberg purchased a stake in the Barbados Tridents of the newly-formed Caribbean Premier League, declaring to the Caribbean Journal, “I am a huge cricket fan now.” The next year, the Tridents came first in the six-team CPL. You connect the dots.

His acting career began with underwear ads:

Marky Mark landed his iconic role in Calvin Klein commercials pretty organically — as the result of his signature in-concert move, pulling down his pants while performing onstage and revealing his white Calvin briefs.

According to former Calvin Klein Senior VP Neil Kraft, Mark adlibbed the entirety of the commercial. Some of the spot’s most memorable quotes include “Shouts goes out to ma man Calvin Klein, g’lookin out for the draaaawers!” and “The best protection against AIDS is to keep your Calvins on.” Awkward.

After the successful Calvin campaign plastered his body all over TVs and billboards, Wahlberg landed his first acting role in 1993’s The Substitute.

Say cheese. Photo: Calvin Klein

Handful. Photo: Calvin Klein

He has extremely un-hairy palms:

In that same Men’s Journal piece the 9/11 quote comes from, the author Erik Hedegaard recalls meeting Wahlberg in 1996 and that Marky was both anti-cunnilingus (“Man, I ain’t into that!”) and anti-masturbation (“They say it’s a sin.”). Hedegaard asks 2012 Wahlberg if he still feels that way, and luckily for us, Mark clarifies: “I don’t get down with jerking off, dude. I told you [ ...] I lead a clean and pure life. I’m a married guy. I have a beautiful wife. Sex is not the most important thing to me, being horny all the time, spanking the — I mean, it’s not against the law. You can do whatever you want. And it’s not like, ‘I shouldn’t do it because of my faith.’ I’m just not really that into it that much anyway.”

He had a decade-long beef with eminem:

The Mathers-Wahlberg feud began with their infamous appearance together on MTV’s Total Request Live in 1999.

Apparently Wahlberg had made it clear he didn’t want his Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch days to be brought up, so naturally Eminem went out of his way to say they were standing around like “one big fun bunch” when Wahlberg joined him on camera. Wahlberg muttered “a**hole” and went stone-faced for the rest of the segment.

In his 2003 biography Eminem recounted the encounter (in between calling Wahlberg a gamut of homophobic slurs, of course), and then in 2006 Wahlberg told Details that “My childhood wasn’t like some 8 Mile bullsh*t where you go and have a rap-off.”

The beef was buried by the 2010s though: Em appeared on Entourage, and Wahlberg talked about wanting to cast Eminem as his character’s brother in The Fighter (2011), a role that eventually went to Christian Bale.

This article was originally published as Craziest Mark Wahlberg Facts in AskMen.

We’ve got 15 passes to Hot Pursuit starring Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon to giveaway! For your chance to win, like our news.com.au Entertainment Facebook page, comment on the Hot Pursuit post and tell us in 25 words or less “If you could take any celebrity with you on a Hot Pursuit, who would it be and why?” Hot Pursuit opens in cinemas June 11. Competition closes 4.00pm Friday June 12. For T&C’s click here.