How Us Weekly Helped Form Jon Taffer and Donnie Wahlberg’s Friendship

Jon Taffer has Us to thank for his friendship with Donnie Wahlberg.

“It must have been 10 or 12 years ago,” the Bar Rescue star, 70, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting season 9 of the Paramount show. “I was reading Us Weekly, as I often do, and I see an article of Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg that their Sunday pleasure is laying in bed all day watching Bar Rescue marathons.”

Taffer explained that when he saw the article he sent a thank you note to McCarthy, 52, who has been married to Wahlberg, 55, since 2014.

“She and I became good friends. I did her Sirius radio show a few times. She did my podcast,” he shared with Us. “And then she, Donnie, my wife Nicole [Taffer] and I all became friends and we’ve had dinner together and such. So they love Bar Rescue. Donnie got to do one with me, and Jenny got to do one with me as well a couple years ago. So that’s how that happened, all because of Us Weekly.”

While McCarthy appeared on season 6 of Bar Rescue in 2019, Wahlberg joined Jon on the show in an episode of season 9, which aired earlier this month.

“It was fun,” Jon gushed about working with Wahlberg. “I’ve known Donnie before we worked together, but Bar Rescue is all as it comes, we don’t know what’s going to happen. So he is in the restaurant business, as you know, his family. So he had a lot to add, but he saw how intense it is.”

Jon noted that the episode is “emotional” to watch, but it’s “far more emotional when you’re in it.”

“[At one point] I looked to my left and I saw the tears coming down [Donnie’s] face,” he added.

Bar Rescue, a show where Jon offers his own professional expertise to failing bars in an effort to save them, released the first episode of season 9 in February.

Jon believes that this season differs from the rest because it focuses “much more about the failing owner than the failing business.”

“Of course the transformations and the remodels are always great, but these are families struggling,” he explained, noting that the past several years have been “challenging” because of the pandemic. “It is a rough season. You’re going to see me tear up once or twice this year.”

Although season 9 is very “emotional,” Jon admits that there were times he still got very angry.

“When people are irresponsible is what gets me or when they treat their employees with disrespect,” he told Us. “Losing money is one thing, and I’ll get a little upset [because] I want to protect their money, but when you serve people food that’s dangerous, that’s past the line. When you treat your employees in a way that robs them of their dignity, that’s past the line.”

Jon explained that when “people pass the line,” then he does too.

“I sort of let them set the rules,” he noted. “If they’re open and polite, I tend to be, if they’re not then I tend to be. I need to be more aggressive than them. I have four days to change everything about the business in the way they run it. I’m in a pressure cooker.”

Even though he has been doing the show for 15 years, Jon shared that Bar Rescue is still “as much fun” as when he first started out.

“The cameras disappear and it’s just me and them,” he gushed. “So each one is in trouble and has its own set of problems. And then that hug at the end is the most rewarding and gratifying thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire professional career. So when you get that hug in the end, it’s tough not to go ahead and do another one.”

Watch season 9 of Bar Rescue on Paramount with new episodes every Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.

With reporting by Christina Garibaldi