Jenny McCarthy in Miami

Jenny McCarthy Is Very
Honest with New Boyfriend
Jenny McCarthy has figured out the key to a happy relationship with new boyfriend Jason Toohey: honesty – and lots of it.

"I have been so open and truthful in this relationship – it is amazing," she tells PEOPLE at a signing of her new book, Love, Lust & Faking It: The Naked Truth About Sex, Lies and True Romance, Friday at Miami's Epic Hotel.

"If he wants Chinese [food] and I don't, I say it," she says. "If he wants to go out and I want to stay in and watch Dancing with the Stars, I tell him so … Sometimes we both want to play poker and we have a blast at home."

Adds McCarthy, 37, "Our relationship is stronger because of the honesty."

Part of this newfound self-assurance came after breaking up with longtime boyfriend Jim Carrey and beginning to think about her book.

"I got the book deal the same time Jim and I split after five years together,” McCarthy says. "While researching and writing it, I looked inside of myself and began to see what was wrong with me instead of blaming him for everything."

"I was a girl who pretended. I would say I liked things when I didn't," she says. "I knew if I wanted to grow, I needed to make myself happy before I could begin to have an equal relationship with another man."

Happy Times

And life with Toohey, 35, a Las Vegas-based pirate performer, is good indeed.

"With Jason, I went in with all of my chips laid out," she says. "He respected that and saw the life in me. And, so far, it is working well."

McCarthy is also pretty busy. In addition to her new book, she's readying a talk show for Oprah's Harpo Studios, which begins shooting in April.

"I am so pleased with everything in my career and personal life right now," she says. "I am staying with Jason because I am happy. If that should change, I will simply leave. I trust my own happiness – and I will follow my own emotional guide."

Jenny McCarthy could have been just another pretty Playboy centerfold, but the former model used her uninhibited humor to kick-start a multiplatform career – that even got Oprah Winfrey's stamp of approval!

The Chicago native dropped out of nursing school at 19, nabbed Playboy's Playmate of the Year at 21 and broke out as the star of MTV's dating show, Singled Out, at 22. The '90s It girl even landed her own NBC sitcom, but it was her frank discussion about pregnancy and motherhood in her best-selling books that landed her a talk show deal with Oprah.

On a serious note, McCarthy – who dated actor Jim Carrey for four years – has made public her fight against her young son Evan's autism.