Donnie Wahlberg Left “In Awe” By Carrie Underwood’s Performance
As a beloved boy band member, Donnie Wahlberg is all too familiar with swooning fans. As famous as he is with New Kids On The Block—and from his long-running role on Blue Bloods—the 55-year-old actor and singer isn’t beyond the same behavior when it comes to his favorite musical acts.
On Saturday, April 12, Donnie and his wife, Jenny McCarthy, attended the final show of Carrie Underwood’s Reflection Las Vegas Residency. The next day, the couple commemorated the experience on Instagram with a snap of them alongside Carrie herself.
Donnie Wahlberg knew he was going to be emotional on his last day on the Blue Bloods set, but 48 hours of tears wasn’t necessarily on his agenda.
Wahlberg, who has played Det. Danny Reagan on the CBS series since its premiere in 2010, was admittedly a puddle of tears on his final day on set of the series in June, and he told Variety that he “couldn’t turn off the tears for another probably two days” after the show wrapped.
The moment that really got him was when star Tom Selleck read a poem to the cast after they filmed their final Reagan family dinner scene — a scene that was featured in every episode of the show.
Wahlberg, 55, told the outlet he “didn’t make it through” Selleck’s reading of “Love Is Not All” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and added, “Literally, my life passed before my eyes.”
“I was listening to his voice mesmerize this room and thinking about what a magical journey, and what a gift that this boy, who didn’t know where his next meal was going to come from half the time, in this scrappy family, who grew up watching this man on TV, is sitting next to him, sharing this magical moment of his wisdom and grace,” he recalled.
Selleck, 79, told the outlet it’s a poem he’s “always loved” but he didn’t plan on reciting it in that moment. It wasn’t a surprise to Wahlberg, though, as he revealed that Selleck “had a knack for showing up to work and delivering a message” to the cast “at critical times.”
“He would quote different things to leave us with something to think about and focus us on what’s important. It was a magical thing,” Wahlberg said. “When they said, ‘That’s a wrap,’ we all waited.”
Wahlberg was not shy about the emotions he was feeling after his last day on set in June, as he wrote a lengthy and heartfelt Instagram post beside a video of the last time he arrived on set.
“Not sure I have the words to describe how I feel about today, or the last 14 years on this special Blue Bloods journey, but I do know how incredibly thankful I am for every moment of it,” he wrote, calling the show “one of the great blessings of my life.”
