Mark Wahlberg Earns High School Diploma At Age 42

MSNBC.com Headline 9/17/2013

HOLLYWOOD, CA - We've all kind of gotten the feeling over the years that Mark Wahlberg is kind of, well, you know, fucking stupid.  But apparently no one ever took the time to verify just how stupid the guy really is.  No matter, the south Boston native showed us his cards on this one.  In a column published Tuesday in the Huffington Post, the 42 year old actor revealed that he only just recently graduated from high school.  Apparently Wahlberg put a gun to the head of his formal education in the ninth grade, believing that there was nothing he would learn in school that he couldn't learn on his own.  Twenty-nine years later, though, the actor decided this was all a big mistake.  But while this ambitious and noble decision to finish what he'd started has drawn praise from many of his celebrated colleagues, what is really catching everyone by surprise is the reason he felt it was necessary to pick up the books again.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," Wahlberg told MSNBC's Carol Rosen on Tuesday.  "Me and some of the guys were watching MTV, and this commercial with Shannon Doherty came on for this thing, Education Connection.  She was talkin' about how she finally figured out how to make more money by finishing high school.  And then it hit me!"  Wahlberg went on to describe how after some quick soul searching, he decided he wasn't "going to end up like broke like the rest of those teeny bopper has-beens."  He enrolled in an online GED course the next day, and got right to work.

"What really stood out to me," Wahlberg claims, "was the part where she said that high school graduates earn 65% more than people that don't finish high school."  Rosen attempted to explain to Wahlberg that this statistic doesn't generally apply to well-known movie stars in show business.  But Wahlberg, who is listed at #28 on Forbes list of wealthiest actors with $53 Million, would have none of it.

"Do you want to know how much I'm be worth now that I've graduated high school?"  The actor produced a piece of loose leaf paper and a number 2 pencil.  Two minutes later, he held up the paper, with the number $87,450,000 circled at the bottom.  "The numbers don't lie."

- Ian Swanson