Donnie Wahlberg never thought he’d host a show like ID’s “Very Scary People.”
“I love watching true crime. I never thought I would actually make true crime television. If somebody said ‘Donnie Wahlberg from New Kids On the Block is going to host the true crime show,’ it’d probably be a little bit of a head scratcher,” Wahlberg, 55, told The Post.
The new season of “Very Scary People” premieres Sunday, Dec. 15 on ID (9 p.m.).
Hosted and executive produced by Wahlberg, the show explores some of America’s most heinous crimes. This season’s episodes cover cases such as an undetected serial killer posing as an FBI informant, a drug kingpin who terrorized New York City, and a rising boxing star-turned-killer.
Wahlberg’s “Blue Bloods” role led him to “Very Scary People.” For fourteen seasons, he’s starred on the police procedural as NYPD detective Danny Regan. The CBS drama is ending Friday, Dec 13 (10 p.m.).
“If you think of Donnie Wahlberg, who plays Danny Reagan, is going to host a true crime show that makes a little bit more sense,” said Wahlberg.
“I think if there wasn’t a Danny Reagan, there wouldn’t be a ‘Very Scary People. I think it made sense for me to host the show because of ‘Blue Bloods.’ And, in many ways, I think of it as Danny Reagan is actually producing the show, ‘Very Scary People. And Danny Reagan is kind of the host.”
The “Band of Brothers” actor said that he probably wouldn’t understand the police side of cases that are covered on “Very Scary People,” if he hadn’t “worked so closely with retired NYPD detectives for the last 14 years.”
“So I think all of the time on ‘Blue Bloods’ really helped prepare me to make the show and probably heightened my interest in solving crimes and trying to understand what makes people who do such horrible things tick.”
Wahlberg explained that this season will also emphasize, “talking to some people who survived and more directly impacted by some of these crimes. I think we made a conscious choice not to glorify the killers. Not that we were ever doing that, but I think we wanted to get more of an input, a more point of view of people who’ve been impacted or survived some of these very scary people.”
Wahlberg and his wife, “The Masked Singer” judge Jenny McCarthy, will also co-host the special “Very Scary Lovers.”
Airing Sunday, Feb 2 (11 p.m.), it will cover Benjamin and Erika Sifrit, infamously known as the “Thrill Killers.”
“Jenny and I love watching ‘Forensic File.’ She’s into true crime as well,” said Wahlberg.
Over the years of doing “Very Scary People,” their research found many couples who committed crimes together.
“It just seemed really like a great idea for her and I to host it together,” the “Blue Bloods” star said about his wife.
He quipped: “Maybe that’ll lead to her doing her own ‘Very Scary Housewives,’ or something. Unrelated to ‘The Real Housewives.’”
Wahlberg married McCarthy in 2014. The secret to their decade-long success is to “treat it like it’s new.”
“We work on the relationship,” he told the Post. “We work on ourselves, and we still do the little things that we did when we first met that made us fall in love with each other.”
