Jenny McCarthy Says The Government Hired A PR Firm To Smear Her For Talking About Vaccines And Autism

Jenny McCarthy has been a lot of things: actress, model, TV host, autism advocate and, according to the government, "public enemy number one."

In a recent conversation with Maria Menounos, McCarthy claimed that a government agency attempted to orchestrate a PR campaign to discredit her for speaking out about vaccines and autism. McCarthy revealed how someone came to her organization, Generation Rescue, with a warning. "I was approached by, let's just say, a government agency to be hired,” she told Menounos. She said what they do is “set up PR campaigns to go against the narrative.”

However, McCarthy said this individual refused the job because their own child had gone through the same thing, but they wanted to give her a heads-up. "They're gonna hire someone else,” she was told. 

McCarthy says this person met her in person, stressing the severity of the situation. "We couldn't do an email, we couldn't do a phone call. I had to come to you in person and let you know this, that they're going to come after you with and hard." The strategy, as she was told, was to label her as "anti-vaccine" and let the media take care of the rest.

McCarthy has long maintained that she isn't anti-vaccine, but that hasn't stopped the narrative from taking hold. "How are they gonna do that when I've clearly said in every interview, I'm not anti-vaccine? Like I'm just telling the story of my child, of what happened and how I'm getting him better." But, as she was warned, "Doesn't matter. They're gonna come after you with everything they've got and they've got the media on their side."

At first, McCarthy didn’t believe it. "I was like, there's no way. ‘Cause I preface it in my book. I've preface it everywhere."  

McCarthy says her advocacy only hurt her career and her ability to provide for her son. "It didn't really hurt me until it started taking jobs away from me. Cause I was a single mother, still trying to heal my son, pay for speech therapy, ABA." She described it as "the beginning of kind of that cancel culture."

She recalled getting calls from certain jobs telling her she was being dropped. "If I was some rich b*tch that didn't give a shit, I, it probably wouldn't have affected me, but it was just the job aspect."

Despite the backlash, McCarthy says she refused to back down. "I just heavily relied on still writing my books. And not giving up and still like going, you can try to cancel me, but I'm still going to be here." And, looking back now, she sees it as proof of resilience. "My son is 22 years old and I'm still here."

Given her story, we have to ask: How much of the media is influenced by agencies and governing bodies? Left-leaning media companies and celebrities wouldn't dare go against the grain. McCarthy chalks her bravery up to her childhood. "I think I went to an all-girl Catholic school,” she said. “So, you know, I think it gave me a good armor." 

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