Jenny McCarthy Eyes Taking Over Dr. Ruth’s Sex-Focused Talk Show: ‘It Was Always a Dream of Hers’

Jenny McCarthy has always dreamed of becoming a Hollywood love doctor figure and she’s being tipped to fulfill that fantasy now that her former mentor and friend, the legendary sex therapist Dr. Ruth, has passed away at age 96.

“Jenny has admired Dr. Ruth for her entire career and it was always a dream of hers to fill that role in the culture eventually,” a source close to the situation exclusively tells In Touch. “That is to say, Jenny has been honing her skills as a relationship and sex expert for a long time.”

Jenny, 51, has been steadily building her career toward this moment since she started as a nude model for Playboy before landing the MTV cohosting gig that led to her own sitcom, Jenny. After transitioning to the big screen in films like Scream 3, John Tucker Must Die and Santa Baby, the blonde bombshell snagged her own talk show, The Jenny McCarthy Show, which ran for one season.

She was also briefly a cohost of The View for a season from 2013 to 2014, alongside Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd. Since 2019, Jenny has judged contestants on the musical competition show The Masked Singer.

“She wants to embrace her destiny and step up and actually make it happen now that Ruth is gone.”

Ruth Westheimer, known by many as Dr. Ruth, made her fame initially through a radio program, “Sexually Speaking,” that challenged norms of the day by openly discussing then-taboo subjects regarding intimacy, sex and marriage in 1980. She made her television debut in 1985 with The Dr. Ruth Show, through which she became known for giving serious sex advice in a candid, cheerful and often funny manner, earning her the nickname “Grandma Freud.”

“It’s tricky,” the source continues of Jenny’s dream to take over Dr. Ruth’s role in media, “because the landscape where Ruth made her reputation, the late night network talk shows, is radically different these days.”

“Jenny is more of a reality TV star at the moment than anything else,” the source says.

Dr. Ruth, who died in July at 96, was particularly well-qualified to answer the public’s sex questions. She earned her doctorate of education in family-life studies from Columbia University at age 42 and trained as a sex therapist at Cornell University’s Medical Center before landing her first radio gig.

However, Jenny isn’t exactly underqualified, either. After the host’s son, Evan, was diagnosed with autism in 2005, she became a spokesperson for Talk About Curing Autism, hosting fundraisers and online chats for other parents of autistic children, and started a charity, Generation Rescue.

Jenny has also published several books, including Louder than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism. Of course, she also has unique experience throughout her professional career as a Playboy model and actress to draw on in order to start open conversations around sex and relationships.

“But there’s a real opportunity here to talk frankly about sex, marriage and romance that Jenny has been ready to embrace for a very long time.”