Jenny McCarthy's 3 Sisters: All About Lynette, Joanne and Amy

Jenny McCarthy has kept a close-knit bond with her sisters over the years

Jenny McCarthy has her three sisters — Lynette, Joanne and Amy — by her side.

The Masked Singer judge and her siblings were born and raised in Illinois by their parents, Dan and Linda McCarthy. Their father worked as a foreman in a steel plant while their mother was a stay-at-home-mom, according to The New York Times. The family grew up on the South Side of Chicago and Dan worked extra jobs to send his daughters to a private school.

While Jenny is an actress, model and television personality, her sisters have taken different career paths. Lynette works as a photographer and art director in her native Chicago and has even collaborated with the former TV host on projects over the years.

Joanne also took a more creative career path: She pivoted from a professional athlete to a makeup artist and has worked on TV show sets. Amy, who was also a college athlete, continued her path of health and fitness by starting her own personal training program and becoming a co-owner of a supplement brand.

Related: Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg's Relationship Timeline

Over the years, Jenny hasn’t spoken much about her family in interviews but has featured her parents and sisters on her reality TV show, Donnie Loves Jenny, with her husband Donnie Wahlberg. In the first season, Joanne and their father, Dan, accompanied Jenny on tour, while the second season captured some tension between Jenny and Lynette while she tried to help her decorate her new St. Charles home.

In the third and final season, Jenny, Joanne and Amy visited their childhood home in Chicago with their mother Linda and gave Wahlberg a tour of their old stomping grounds.

Here’s everything to know about Jenny McCarthy's sisters — Lynette, Joanne and Amy — and their relationship with their actress sister.

They grew up outside of Chicago

Jenny and her three sisters grew up on the South Side of Chicago at a home in West Elsdon, all attending private high school.

During the third season of Donnie Loves Jenny, the actress visited her childhood home with her sisters Joanne and Amy, along with their mother Linda. During the episode, she asked the current owners for a tour and was able to recount several of her memories, including finding her family’s initials carved into the cement on the patio in the backyard.

In October 2015, Jenny posted a photo on Facebook with Amy and Joanne posing in front of their childhood home with their mom. She captioned the post, “We broke into the house I grew up in. There's just no place like your old home.”

Today, Jenny still lives in Illinois with her husband at a home in St. Charles. She told The Chicago Tribune in October 2019 that she still enjoys going out in Chicago with her husband and her friends and that her decision to move back to her roots in Illinois was based on the well-being of her son, Evan.

“When (son) Evan was 7 or 8 years old I thought, I need him to make long-term friends and in LA that’s kind of hard,” she explained. “The kids (in Illinois) ride their bikes, play kickball. You just don’t see that on the coast. Midwest is where it’s at.”

Jenny said that the only time she would leave Illinois would be for work, and she would head right back. She shared, “Donnie said to me, ‘Why would we ever leave the place we love the most?’ I have a feeling we’re going to be locals for a very long time.”

Related: All About Jenny McCarthy's Son Evan Joseph Asher

They all played sports

Athleticism runs in the McCarthy family: The Chicago Tribune reported in October 1998 that the sisters played various sports, including bowling and gymnastics. While Jenny was on the softball team in high school, Lynette ran track.

Basketball was also a big sport for Joanne and Amy, who eventually shared the court in college as members of the women’s basketball team at the University of Illinois Chicago.

“It’s great having Amy on the team with me, but it’s kind of funny the way she protects me out there,” Joanne told the newspaper the year prior. “If someone fouls me too hard or knocks me down on defense, Amy is the first one over there to them to be careful what they are doing. ... We have been looking out for each other as long as we have been playing together.”

She also revealed that Jenny couldn't always attend games because of her busy schedule but was "very supportive."

By the end of her time at UIC, Joanne was the team’s all-time leading scorer with 1,805 points. She also set a school record of 238 three-pointers during her time on the team. In 2001, UIC retired Joanne’s jersey, and she became the first woman to have her jersey retired in the school’s history.

After she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology, Joanne had a stint as a professional women’s basketball player. For a short time, she was a member of the Chicago Condors, a team in the American Basketball League.

Lynette and Joanne also work in entertainment like Jenny

While Jenny pursued a career as a model and an actress, her sisters followed other creative paths in the industry.

Lynette works as a photographer and an art director in Chicago. On her website, she offers services for fine art, commercial, print and press, events and more. Her clients include the Michael Phelps Foundation, Ferrero Rocher, Art Institute of College, The Washington Post, Food Network and her sister’s beauty brand, Formless Beauty.

Lynette has gotten a chance to photograph her sister, including for a national campaign that launched in June 2023. At the time, she shared a photo posing with her sister, writing in part, “Special shout-out to my sister Jen for giving me the opportunity to photograph her for a national campaign. It was such a great day with a wonderfully supportive crew.”

After her basketball career ended, Joanne returned to her previous passion for makeup and became a makeup artist in Los Angeles. She told UIC in April 2016 that her college teammates would tell her that she did a “pretty good job” with her makeup and ask her for help.

Jenny encouraged her sister to move out to L.A. to hone her craft, though having a famous sibling didn’t often help her. Joanne explained, “Moving to Hollywood wasn’t a green light for me ... I had to prove myself more than the average artist. I remember days when I worked 16 hours for $100.”

Since then, she has been part of the makeup department on several television shows, including Dancing with the Stars, American Idol and Pretty Little Liars. She’s also done makeup on her sister Jenny on numerous occasions, like her look for the American Music Awards in 2015.

Jenny's younger sister Amy pursued a career in fitness

Amy chose a different path than her sisters post-grad, pursuing a career in health and fitness. She graduated with a bachelor of science in kinesiology and exercise from UIC in 2000.

In addition to her work in business development, non-profit and as a wardrobe stylist, Amy founded her personal training business, Amy McCarthy Fitness, in 2007, according to her LinkedIn. More than a decade later, she became a co-owner of the supplement brand, Motiv8.

Amy has also competed in bodybuilding competitions over the years. Jenny celebrated her younger sister’s accomplishments on Facebook in March 2018, sharing a photo of Amy posing next to her trophies from the competition.

“My Lil Sister won 1st place in her body building competition!” she wrote in the caption. “So proud of Amy McCarthy Fitness for kicking butt and proving hard work pays off!”

They’ve started a new generation of the family

Jenny welcomed her only son, Evan, with her ex-husband John Asher in 2002. She is also a stepmom to Wahlberg’s sons from his previous marriage, Xavier and Elijah.

Amy, who wed AJ Walczak in January 2020, lives in Michigan and has three children: Charlie, Maddie and Vaughn.

The McCarthy family has spent plenty of quality time together over the years. Joanne has documented her close-knit bond with her nephew, Evan, on social media, referring to him as her “best best best best friend” and calling him the “kindest, most loving, caring young man.”

Family trips with the McCarthys have involved the Santa Monica Pier, as documented by Joanne in a throwback moment in February 2016, capturing her and Jenny along with Evan amid a ride on a rollercoaster.

They came together as a family in June 2023 to celebrate Evan’s 21st birthday, with Amy capturing several moments from the night in a video montage on Instagram. The following month, they also spent the Fourth of July together, out on a boat doing different activities.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.