Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971), formerly known by his stage name Marky Mark, is an American actor. His work as a leading man spans the comedy, drama, and action genres. He has received multiple accolades, including a BAFTA Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, nine Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

As a youth, Wahlberg was involved in a number of violent and racially motivated attacks. He gained notability as a member of the hip hop group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch in the 1990s, with whom he released the albums Music for the People (1991) and You Gotta Believe (1992). Wahlberg made his screen debut in Renaissance Man (1994) and had his first starring role in Fear (1996). He received critical praise for his performance as porn actor Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights (1997).

In the early 2000s, Wahlberg ventured into big-budget action movies, such as The Perfect Storm (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), and The Italian Job (2003). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a police officer in the crime drama The Departed (2006). Wahlberg was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for portraying Micky Ward in the sports drama biopic The Fighter (2010). During the 2010s, he landed successful comedy roles with The Other Guys (2010), Ted (2012), Ted 2 (2015), Daddy's Home (2015), and Daddy's Home 2 (2017). Wahlberg also became the protagonist in two films in the Transformers live-action film franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight. He was the world's highest-paid actor in 2017.

Wahlberg served as executive producer of five HBO series: the comedy-drama Entourage (2004–2011), the period crime drama Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014), the comedy-dramas How to Make It in America (2010–2011) and Ballers (2015–2019), and the documentary McMillions (2020). He is co-owner of the Wahlburgers chain and co-starred in the reality TV series about it. Wahlberg received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010.

Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg was born on June 5, 1971, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. He is the youngest of nine children, including actor Robert and singer/actor Donnie. His mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly; 1942–2021), was a bank clerk and a nurse's aide, and his father, Donald Edmond Wahlberg Sr. (1930–2008), was a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War. After his parents divorced in 1982, he divided his time between them.

Wahlberg's father was of Swedish and Irish descent. His mother was of Irish, English and French-Canadian ancestry. On his mother's side of the family, he is distantly related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wahlberg was raised Catholic, and attended Copley Square High School on Newbury Street in Boston.

Walhberg has a history of racially motivated attacks starting from when he was a teenager. In June 1986, a 15-year-old Wahlberg and three friends chased after three black children while yelling "Kill the nigger, kill the nigger" and throwing rocks at them. The next day, Wahlberg and the others followed a group of mostly black fourth-graders (including one of the victims from the previous day) taking a field trip on a beach, yelled racial epithets, threw rocks at them, and "summoned other white males who joined" in the harassment. In August 1986, civil action was filed against Wahlberg for violating the civil rights of his victims, and Wahlberg and his friends were issued a civil rights injunction which served as a warning that they would be jailed if they committed another hate crime.

Wahlberg perpetrated another racist assault in April 1988. Then 16, he assaulted a middle-aged Vietnamese-American man on the street, calling him a "Vietnam fucking shit" and knocking him unconscious with a large wooden stick. Later the same day, Wahlberg attacked Johnny Trinh, another Vietnamese-American, punching him in the eye. When Wahlberg was arrested and returned to the scene of the first assault, he told police officers: "I'll tell you now that's the mother-fucker whose head I split open." Later, Wahlberg would explain that he was on PCP at the time. Investigators also noted that Wahlberg "made numerous unsolicited racial statements about 'gooks' and 'slant-eyed gooks'". He was initially arrested for attempted murder. Wahlberg was charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, one count of marijuana possession, and criminal contempt for violating the prior civil rights injunction he received in 1986. He pleaded guilty to felony assault and was sentenced to three months in jail, but served only 45 days of his sentence. Wahlberg believed he had left the second victim permanently blind in one eye, though Trinh later said that he had lost his eye during the Vietnam War while serving in the South Vietnamese army, which fought alongside American forces.

In August 1992, Wahlberg fractured the jaw of his neighbor Robert Crehan in an attack. Court documents state that in 1992, Wahlberg, "without provocation or cause, viciously and repeatedly kicked" Crehan in the face, while another man, Derek McCall, held the victim on the ground. Wahlberg's attorney claimed that Wahlberg and McCall, who is black, were provoked after McCall was called a racial slur by Crehan. The lawsuit was settled between the two parties, avoiding a criminal trial.

In 2006, Wahlberg said the right thing for him to do would be to meet with Trinh and make amends. In 2016, while requesting a pardon for his conviction for the assault on Trinh, Wahlberg said he had met with Trinh and apologized "for those horrific acts". Trinh released a public statement forgiving Wahlberg.

In 2014, Wahlberg applied for a pardon from the State of Massachusetts for his convictions. His pardon application engendered controversy. According to the BBC, the debate about his suitability for a pardon raised "difficult issues, with the arguments on both sides being far-reaching and complex". One individual attacked by Wahlberg when she was a child opposed the pardon, stating that "a racist will always be a racist". Judith Beals, who had been the prosecutor in some of the cases, argued that "Wahlberg has never acknowledged the racial nature of his crimes" and that pardoning Wahlberg would undermine his charity work, saying: "a formal public pardon would highlight all too clearly that if you are white and a movie star, a different standard applies. Is that really what Wahlberg wants?"

In 2016, Wahlberg said he regretted his attempt to obtain a pardon, and his petition was closed after he failed to answer a request from the pardon board as to whether he wanted it to remain open.



Wahlberg first came to fame as the younger brother of Donnie Wahlberg of the successful boy band New Kids on the Block. Mark, at age 13, was one of the group's original members, along with Donnie, but quit after a few months. Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, Jonathan Knight and Joey McIntyre all joined the group after Mark had left.

In 1990, Wahlberg began recording with dancers/rappers Scott Ross (Scottie Gee), Hector Barros (Hector the Booty Inspector), Anthony Thomas (Ashley Ace), and Terry Yancey (DJ-T) as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, earning a hit with "Good Vibrations" from their debut album Music for the People. The record, produced by brother Donnie, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, later becoming certified as a platinum single. The second single, "Wildside", peaked at number five on Billboard's Hot Singles Sales chart and at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was certified as a gold single. Marky Mark opened for the New Kids on the Block during their last tour. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch also had their own video game, titled Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Make My Video, which despite the band's success, was a huge flop. The second Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch LP, You Gotta Believe, was not as successful as the first, yielding only a minor hit single in the title track.

In December 1992, while performing on the British TV show The Word, Wahlberg praised Shabba Ranks, who had stated gay people should be crucified. GLAAD condemned him and berated Calvin Klein for using him to promote their products. A self-titled autobiographical picture book, Marky Mark, with images taken by Lynn Goldsmith and statements mostly by him, was also released. Trying to resuscitate his music career, he had shifted to Hamburg, where he was produced under the label of East West Records by Frank Peterson and Alex Christensen.

Wahlberg later collaborated with the late reggae/ragga singer Prince Ital Joe on the album Life in the Streets. The project combined rap vocals, electronic-infused ragga, and "European dancefloor" music, delivering the singles "Happy People", German number one hit "United", "Life in the Streets", and "Babylon", with Peterson and Christensen as producers. Many of these tracks featured on the film Renaissance Man, starring Wahlberg and Danny Devito.

In 1995, he released a single titled "No Mercy", in support of his friend Dariusz Michalczewski, whom he had befriended earlier in the 1