Excerpt: 'Love, Lust & Faking It' by Jenny McCarthy

Actress Jenny McCarthy divulges the "naked truth" about love, sex and romance.

ByABC News via logo
March 31, 2009, 5:04 PM

Sept. 30, 2010 — -- Actress Jenny McCarthy is no stranger to the complicated nature of romance, and where love and sex fit into the equation.

In her new book "Love, Lust & Faking It," McCarthy uses her own experiences to sort out the messy nature of love.

Read an excerpt from the book below and check out the "GMA" Library for more great reads.

By Jenny McCarthy

My parents were married for thirty years. And I thought for sure they would never get divorced. Not because they publicly adored each other or looked at each other with meaningful looks — quite the contrary. I thought they would stay together forever because divorce happened to other people, not my family. But it did happen, and they divorced when I was twenty-one. I knew it was better off that way, but I still crawled into bed and gave it a good old cry.

I couldn't possibly imagine my parents with new boyfriends or girlfriends. Gross! It made me sick to my stomach to even think of them getting naughty with someone else. But after a year or so of my parents being "on the market," my mom called with an amazing story from her past. There was this boy named Tom who she dated from the time she was fifteen to age twenty. Tom was her high school sweetheart. They went to each other's proms and have pictures to prove their growth through puberty together. They were madly in love with one another, until one horrific day.

My mom found a picture of another girl in Tom's wallet, not even a naked one, and she freaked the hell out. Tom swore to my mom it was only in there because the girl gave it to him, and that was it. Mom didn't believe him, of course, and threw him out. She was devastated and avoided Tom at every cost. Tom didn't give up, though. He knocked on doors, showed up at her work, and tried everything aside from handing her a gift box with his b***s in it to get mom back. Mom then quickly started dating this guy named Dan, who happens to be my dad. He had just returned from serving in Vietnam, and was after my mom like she was a hot little cupcake. As my mom put it, they were waiting to have sex until they were married, so they decided to tie the knot in a matter of months. The wedding was set and was a week away. But she felt sad; it just didn't feel right. Tom showed up that night and said, "Please don't do this. I love you, Linda, you're my life, don't marry that guy." Mom started bawling her eyes out and said, "I'm sorry, but my mom already paid for the wedding." They both cried, and then she did what she had to do: she threw him out of the house as fast as she could. She knew he was the love of her life, but there was nothing she could do about it. They never saw each other again. Ugh! That killed me. I couldn't believe that for thirty years my mom's heart had been in another place!