Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Wife Didn’t Know Him from Saved by the Bell When They Met: ‘I Wasn’t Her Crush’

Mark-Paul Gosselaar in ‘Saved by the Bell’ in 1989 and in July 2024. PHOTO: 

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Mark-Paul Gosselaar may have been the object of millions of teen girls’ affections in the early ’90s, but his wife wasn’t among them.

Some of those adoring fans were in the studio audience for the Tuesday, Jan. 21, episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show, cat-calling the Saved by the Bell star. But Gosselaar explained to Hudson that he’s not used to that kind of attention these days.

“I feel so blessed that I have a job and I get to do what I do, because I love what I do,” he said. “But I just see myself as a husband and a father, and that’s my day.”

“And they could care less what I do, right?” Gosselaar, who currently stars in NBC’s Found, added of his wife, advertising executive Catriona McGinn, and four kids.

Catriona McGinn and Mark-Paul Gosselaar in January 2024.

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Gosselaar, 50, went on to reveal that McGinn, whom he married in 2012, had no idea what he did for a living when they met.

“She knew my costar on another show — on a show that I was on, it was called Raising the Bar, and she knew one of the costars,” he explained. “And she didn’t even know that I was on the show ‘cause her friend was on the show. She was like, ‘Yeah, you were in the way. I was, like, fast-forwarding to see my friend and you just happened to be the guy that was on a lot.’ ”

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Gosselaar starred as public defender Jerry Kellerman in the TNT legal drama from 2008 to 2009. Long before that, of course, he became a teen heartthrob playing Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell from 1989 to 1993.

“So, she had no idea that you were, like, everybody’s crush?” a shocked Hudson asked.

“I wasn’t her crush,” Gosselaar joked.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar in ‘Raising The Bar’ in 2008.

DANNY FELD/TNT/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Looking at a promo photo of himself from Saved by the Bell, the actor said that it seemed like “a lifetime ago.”

“A lot of that I don’t remember, because it was at a point in my life where I wasn’t sentimental about anything,” he explained, adding that he never even swiped props from the show’s set to remind him of the experience. “I took nothing from that other than: I met these people and the relationships that we still have — that’s what we took from it.”

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“We were children, and we never thought that the show would become what it did years and years later,” he continued.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar in ‘Saved by the Bell’ in 1991.

JOSEPH DEL VALLE/NBCU PHOTO BANK

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Gosselaar noted that even as a teen star, he never took success for granted. But he admitted that he regrets putting his education on hold.

“I think when I decided that I was going to become an actor I kind of put education behind me,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’ll get to it. I don’t have to go to school right now. I’ll go a little bit later.’ And what happened was life started happening. You know, I got married very young and I had kids and things change. But I wish I had sort of pushed myself harder to get a higher education.”

Gosselaar married his first wife, former model Lisa Ann Russell, in 1996 when he was just 22. The couple, who share two children — 20-year-old Michael Charles and 18-year-old Ava Lorenn — divorced in 2011. Gosselaar and McGinn, 46, also share a son and daughter, 11-year-old Dekker Edward and 9-year-old Lachlyn Hope.