RaMona Rizzo: Mafia Princess
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Is this thing on? Bonnie, who used to be a former sex worker, now hosts the podcast, Dumb Blonde. Most little girls grow up wanting to be doctors and lawyers and shit, and I was like, I want to be super hot, make a lot of fucking money, and be a rock star's wife. That was my goal as a child, and here we are. What's up, you sexy motherfuckers? Welcome to another episode of Dumb Blonde. Today, I have a true...

I guess we could call you a mafia princess? Some degree. Ms. Ramona Rizzo, how you doing, baby? I'm doing great. Honestly, I'm so...

happy to be here. I kind of manifest this in my own brain to be here with you because everything that you've done, like I'm going to give you your flowers. You know, I'm not like a little groupie, like a fan groupie, but the things that I've said about Bunny is like, she says it how it is, what she's been through, but also you're very, very intelligent, which more people need to know. Like take away all the aesthetic of the makeup, the clothes. Like you say some deep shit. I'm like,

this bitch, like you would really think that you had like the best education. You're very educated. I give it to you, girl. Girl, you want to make out? I need you to just come and do my intros all the time. That was amazing. I appreciate you. And you know, it's, I always tell everybody, uh, street smarts, Trump's book smarts. And I learned everything that I've learned through life lessons and living on the street. So I appreciate that.

So there's so much to dive into with you. I just had, you know, one of the other mob wives who you are very close with. That is your cousin, right? Well, we're not blood, but we knew each other before we were actually born. Our parents were pregnant together. So we grew up the minute we came out like with each other.

Okay. And that's Karen Gravano. So, um, I just had her on the podcast and I told her the same thing. Like, you know, when this whole mob wife aesthetic thing came online, I was like, this is the perfect opportunity to show people that this is not just an aesthetic, that this is a real lifestyle that has hurt people that has affected people that has given you amazing memories also in the same token. And your story is, um, pretty crazy. I felt like,

so bad for you watching some things and we're going to get into it, but who was your grandfather? My grandfather was Lefty Guns Ruggiero and the movie Donnie Brasco was based on him basically. Yeah. So let's go back to that. So where did you grow up?

I was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And that's where the show, like, actually the show, the movie was featured there. Right. And he, so Lefty Guns was part of the Bonanno crime. Look at you, you're Italian. Yeah. The Bonanno crime. Listen, I did some research, okay? Yeah.

Saying it properly. I'm telling you. So he was part of the Bonanno crime family and you were the first granddaughter. Yes. Did growing up, what was your relationship with your grandfather like? We were so, so close. Like I was, you know, when you see like somebody's, your grandfather's princess, that's who I was. And we had a very, very close relationship. I had another grandfather who was in the lifestyle, but...

I don't know. Maybe a lot of times people say you're always closer to your mom's parents opposed to your dad's. So I was much closer to him. He was a very warm person. So I don't know what he was doing behind closed doors. And when he left to me, he was so affectionate. He was warm. He made a big fuss, total gentleman. And if he was like, you know, I wish he was here today. He, he would fuss over you. Like he would do it on you. Like he was very, very big on manners.

I love that. Anytime I hear you talk about your grandfather, it's always like the sweetest memories. That's what I knew. Like what an, what an honor though, to him to have a granddaughter who just like pat him on a pedestal. Well, according to the few, you know, if I ever get bored a couple of times and I'll just like read some of the comments, like say if I do an interview like this or just in general, like he was a murderer. How do you sit there and justify your grandfather? I'm like, dude, I'm like,

this who he was to me. We're not talking about Charles Manson. We're talking about somebody that was in an organization that everybody chose to be in. It wasn't like how, say, Charles Manson got innocent people or, you know, the serial killers. Like, people want to just sit there and say, murder, murderer. He was alleged. He never got convicted of that. You know, they said whatever they said, the number. It's quite

It's quite high. But was it true? Don't know. Not my business to know. And I'll never have proof if it was. Right. And I think that's actually a profound point is because it's so easy for people on the outside to be like, oh, he was a murderer. How are you advocating for this man? And really, that side you never got to see. Your grandfather loved you and doted on you. And any time we talk about him, I always hear about the great memories that you guys had.

Growing up, when did you start realizing that there was something different about your family? Because I heard you state in an interview that it was a very secretive family.

Till this day, my family, they just can't help themselves. They're very secretive. And that's why with my four children, like, just come ask me everything. Just get it out of, you know, off your chest. What do you want to know? Yeah. It had to be about nine years old when all this started. And it never, it went into that family, to my actual family that I was living with. Because I lost out a father. Right. Yeah.

he wasn't a straight shooter either, even though he's legit on paper. He had a past that if you Google it comes up. So, you know, if I was born in this time, they would never have a chance to keep up any secrets. Right. But then they were very secretive about everything. So it was about nine. And how I always remember that, because that's another thing. How do you remember your childhood trauma? I remember it when I was five.

but I had to do with the holy time of communion. My grandfather's body language changed differently so much that day. It was always about me and fussing and fussing, but he became like talking in the corner, like not himself. Like I could read his body language. He was like, he knew something was going down to me.

You know, he took whatever happened to him like a man. He never ratted. He never cooperated. But he was still nervous because a lot of stuff was happening. And I guess that was in the time frame. Like, words were being shared and, you know, things were different. Let's kind of paint a picture for the people at home. Okay.

about, you know, what happened with your grandfather. So there was an undercover agent named Joe Pistone, who entered, infiltrated the mob as Donnie Brosco. Yes. Can you tell us that story and take us on that journey? Well, everybody thinks that my grandfather was the one who introduced him to everyone. He wasn't. My grandfather got introduced to Pistone from another man that was part of the book.

And, um, cause the book tells the real side opposed to the movie. Joe Pistone wrote a book. He sold the book to the, you know, to the, um,

movie company i don't know who produced it at the time and they had the right to change it because once you they buy the rights to the book it's lights camera action so from that where they got to change the ending that my grandfather was murdered he died of cancer in sloan-kenning hospital so it was totally different yeah so again a lot of people don't know when you work for the fbi you're not supposed to profit off your work so post pastone wrote the book they fired him

because he was just like rewarded, like here's your plaque and a check for $200. But this man was so engulfed in this lifestyle that I think he never would have quit. Like they pulled him off because supposedly there was going to be a hit on my grandfather. Yeah. So they closed down the whole operation. Let's rewind it back and start from the beginning. So your grandfather allegedly had a gambling problem, correct? Gambling and women. He would have loved you, Blondie. Yeah.

My kind of guy. I'm from Vegas. So he, you know, had a gambling problem and he was kind of, this is me just, you know, all the research that I did and correct me if I'm wrong, but I want you to tell the story also. So he kind of had a gambling problem and he,

enter Joe Pistone, AKA Donnie Brosco presents himself as this jewel thief, this, you know, hustler, whatever. And he starts working with your grandfather to initially start paying back his debts. Right? Well, this again, this is what happened. So he met my grandfather through somebody that was in their, their crew already cooperating. So if you're ready with somebody who's cooperating, what are they going to tell you? So now we need to move on to the next one.

So the guy introduced the Pistone. Then my grandfather and him became extremely close. And my grandfather, regardless, they were making money. Whatever he did with that money, yes, it was definitely to pay debt, probably to go pay some more, probably to go buy us gifts, whatever it was. It was for his lifestyle and to pay off debt, but also to keep gambling. Right. And to live. Right. So moving on from that, he...

Also, hold on, let me get my bifocals on. Let me not even be able, let me not even pretend to be able to read this without my glasses. He came, he became a made man though after working with Pistone. And then...

After, you know, him and Pistone had a pretty, cause I'm just trying to paint his picture at home for people so they can see all that you've been through. And you know, the story of your grandfather, um, he, and he became best friends with Joe Pistone. He was his best man at the wedding. Wow. Cause he got remarried. Him and my grandmother were divorced. And, um, he married this girl that I thought for many years was the maid. See, I'm going back to the family secrets. Like nothing was off limits here. I'm like, who's calling? I'm like, I'm calling the house. And they're like, it's the maid. I'm like the maid. It's

So in reality, they were, they were shading her though. Yeah. They were being petty and shading her. But they would never say anything like, you know, through whatever took place. So many secrets came out like this movie through the book, through him going to jail. Like they waited till after he died. So it was like, damn, like it all hit you. So before he passed away from cancer, um, I, there was a part where it said that you were, um,

You know, nine years old at your first communion, all this stuff was going down. You know, him and Pistone became best friends. And then one of the head bosses was murdered and it caused like a split in the families.

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all Lume products with our exclusive code and link. Use code bunnyxo at lumedeodorant.com. That's L-U-M-E-D-E-O-D-O-R-A-N-T.com. You guys already know I'm a Lume girl. I have to have it, especially when we're on tour, high paced shows, back to back, running around, armpits, sweating,

butthole marinating, just piddle juice pouring from all the holes. You guys already know that Lume is my go-to. Lume's starter pack is perfection for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant, cream tube deodorant, two free products of your choice like mini body wash and deodorant wipes, and free shipping. Again, as a special offer for listeners, new customers get 15% off all

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To that, whatever went on with them with that, I'm not 100% sure. All I know was that something had taken place and that they said that they were going to put, there was a contract out of my grandfather, not from...

Not about like the mob was going to kill him for something before they even knew. I guess maybe that's when they found out Brasco was an informant. Right. Something happened with the book. Yes. I mean, with a boat. Yeah. And they said they put two and two together. They have said that there was like a yacht party and it made the news. And that's how they start. Your grandfather started questioning the.

And this will get better because see, like if he was maybe here today, once I found out about the book and I had a breakdown and I'm a teenager, I'm like, maybe like in my, no, a little bit older, maybe like twenties. And I'm like, what is this? And then I said to myself, he goes, do you have anything you want to ask me? You could ask me whatever. I took a deep breath and I said, no, you're my grandfather. I don't want to. But before I got the book the day before I got the book, I was hysterical crying for two days straight. So the book hit me first.

before the movie. Right. So I had the chance to like, see how you're asking me all these questions. Some of them I do and don't know because I could have asked him anything. He would have told me whatever. I didn't care. Yeah. It didn't care anymore because it's like, you can't tell me about a person that I know. It's truly not my business what a man does when he leaves the house. Right. If we're married, perhaps. Right. But there's your grandfather. Yeah. It's like a level of respect and I didn't need to know it. So,

So as far as that, I think what took place was there, they found out Donnie Brasco was an agent. Then they were going to put a hit out on my grandfather. They took him right off the street, arrested him, and that was it. And he had no record. My grandfather never had any priors or anything like that. He went to jail for the RICO Act. And during this entire time, your family is still lying to you. A thousand percent.

And not telling you anything that's going on. How, as a little girl, is that making you feel? Like, does that give you anxiety? Does that give you depression? Like, I think one of the most awesome things that I gathered from doing the research on you was you said that you used to sit down and write your grandfather letters, but then you would also write back his response to you. And even as a child, that's a form of manifestation. Well, yes, but let's talk about the word anxiety. I don't think that word was used back then. Mm-hmm.

This is a word of now. This is a word in the past couple of years. It wasn't big growing up. No, no. It wasn't big if a parent had a problem, maybe they should be on bipolar medicine. Right. There wasn't a problem. Like, let's be honest with our kids. Everything was very hush.

So for me, that had to be an anxiety. I couldn't come and tell my parents, this is what I know. I was, I had the knot in my feeling, you know, my stomach. I had like, I was sad. I was crying. That's anxiety. I was nervous, but you didn't know what that, nobody explained it to you. There was no internet. There was nobody talking about it at school. There was nobody to help you with your problems. So I had to deal by myself. I was writing because I

I'm watching things on the news. I'm grasping it, but I'm not. It was still a lot, but I knew, I knew how to know his, hear his name. I knew how to see him on the TV, but nobody would tell me. So I had to figure it out myself to a degree. I had to write letters and I had actually write it to my grandfather telling him how I felt. That was my therapy. And then after that. But at such a young age to do that. I had no outlets.

Yeah. You know, Karen would tell you, she'd be like, you know, this all makes sense. Cause after she watched the special that I did and I discussed that, she goes, this makes sense. Why are you always all the time in the room by yourself? Like they will go outside and play a lot. And I would just be like, no, I'm in my room because I got so used to it. I became used to being drew.

my own therapist in a way. And also like my best friend, like, you know, when somebody has like, not even like an alter ego, when somebody talks to yourself, but it's really you and you say it out loud. That's what I was doing. I was doing a dual, like being my own psychiatrist. That is crazy that you did that at such a young age. And then when was the pivotal moment that you actually, your parents were actually honest with you? I think some letters got intercepted. My mother and I, we have the same name.

same first name. They, but they call her Mona instead of Ramona, but the letters he would never call him on. He would always write to her Ramona. She gave me her letter. I said, ho, ho, ho.

this is it. This is, this is like the jackpot. I'm going to finally get, you know, time to express what's going on. I read her letter. I said, this is, I'm going to read it out loud. So I would never make my mother read, you know, listen to my grandfather's letter. They were sacred. They were private. Nobody could read them. Nobody could touch them. He wasn't telling me like the code to the, you know, that's safe at all the millions. It was just between us. So now I'm like,

I read the letter out loud and it was to my mother and he's like, ha Mona, you know, days a little bit, not that great. You know, jail is what it is. Something pertaining to that. He said the word jail, all of a sudden the floodgates, she just started hailing and crying. You know, did we talk about how I set her up to this day? We never even had that conversation. But even then as a little kid, I was basically setting up my mother because that was my outlet to get, you know, to get answers. But let the cat out of the bag. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, I could have been again, why, what happened? Just want to see him. We don't have to talk about all that because I didn't want to hear it because I was so tired at that point being lied to. And I didn't know if I could trust what was going to come out of your mouth and really did it even matter? He is where he was. It was a lot for a nine year old, but it was like, just give me to the prize already. I don't care about, you know, unpacking it. Just give me to the prize. And he was the prize going to jail.

Go visit. They had taken him after your communion. A little bit after. Is that, is that when we had circled away from that? But so at your communion, you could tell that your grandfather's body language was off. And can you shortly after, shortly after maybe like maybe a month or two, he was gone and we're in Florida. That's what he's telling my parents. Like he's in Florida.

And so between that time and the time that you got that letter, your parents were lying to you the entire time. Not even the parents, the whole family. It wasn't just my mother and father. Everybody was in on it. Aunts, uh, friends, everybody. It was like, you know, shh, don't tell the kids.

Lies really could destroy a family. Yeah. That's gotta be so painful and traumatizing as a child to know that you, they pretty much initially gaslit you your whole childhood. And that's,

Traumatic as fuck more than traumatic because it's like something that you know when I it really depends like I don't remember what I ate yesterday for dinner. I don't remember a lot of stuff, especially you know this age creeping up on you. I don't remember. And I try to do whatever I could do to like I play the little crosswords and try to like always jog the brain, but I could always go back to the first day I visited him in jail. I remember what I wore.

I remember the corduroys. Like if you had to feel like, if you had to put them in front of me, I could remember the type of corduroys they wore. I could remember the watch. I could remember how my hair was. And I could remember like, you know when you go in a hospital room and you just feel like that eeriness and the coldness and there's a certain type of sterile smell? Yeah. That's what jail reminds me of, all that. And back then, I did have to see him in cuffs because it was different back then. Yeah. And a lot of people don't know, it's like he was in MDC, which is the lower part of Manhattan. Yeah.

So now I could officially say where he is. So we went from not seeing, you know, not knowing where he was to like, he's at the window. Look, he's at the window. He's waving at you. So now it was like, my family was like, he's waving. And I'm like, last week you told me he was enjoying the sun. Now it's like, look, he's waving. So it went, it just, it's a lot. It was a lot to take in. You know, even though I got to see him, it was still a lot.

What was that like, that first meeting, seeing your grandfather? What kind of emotions was that? Different, because there was many people around where I'm not used to where he can't get up. He can't pick me up and throw me. But then once I initially got into the visit, it was like nobody else was around anymore. But initially, it was like, this is horrible, because it's like now we're like... Supervised. On rules. But in the rules that he had to tell me where...

this is going to be different, but he was still, he had charisma. He still did it with such grace where, you know, fast forward, not fast forward, you go back in time and everyone say, how do you remember things? I went to go visit my father when I was jail and I was younger and he really didn't have much grace. I spilled the soda, the Coca-Cola and it was like, clean it up. Like that was traumatic.

Where anything that took place with my grandfather there, it was still done in grace. Where again, how did I remember when I went to go visit my father in jail many years when I was young? I was like four. How do you remember that? Because something took place there. That soda spilling sent a trigger to my brain. And I'm like, every time, sometimes a Coke, that's what I remember, a Coca-Cola being spilled. Wow.

That is so wild that your family would let you go visit your father in jail. I wasn't going to remember. Who thought I would remember, Bunny? Yeah. I was little. And then... He was... Oh, we were in college. I went to go visit my father in college. So at that age, do you really know that you're in jail? I was little. I had to be maybe like about four or something like that. I don't remember the exact age, but I was tiny where enough they could lie to you. Yeah. But I still remember. Right. Still like, you know...

see the pictures. They took you to jail, but they said he was in college. Yes. Oh my gosh. And that's a big mob thing. That's a big Italian thing. I don't know if it goes into other, you know, um, nationalities. They'd be like, where's, where's her father? Oh, he's in college. Wow. He's away. He's in school. Nobody like, was your dad in the lifestyle also?

Gotcha. Yeah. I can tell it's hard for you to talk about it. Yeah. You know, I don't really, I don't speak to my dad, but that's a whole other can of worms. But yeah, that was like a whole other thing. Whatever. I went to go visit him in jail that time when I was younger. Dude, it's 2023. I could search you on the internet. Yeah. So you don't need to blame me for mob wives for coming up. Everybody's skeletons are coming up. You don't need to show. Is he still in prison or is he out? Oh, no, no. My father's 100% legit. He's...

Why don't you guys talk anymore? Oh, because I married someone out of my nationality that was in FBI, which... And I said, what's FBI? I'm like, we don't like FBI. He goes, no, full-blooded Italian. I said, Jesus Christ, can't catch a break around here. So I married somebody that he didn't approve of. And at the end of the day, it's like, okay, don't approve of him. I have four kids now, but we just don't speak. But still love your daughter, even if you don't approve of who I marry. But...

After all that came to place, it goes deeper. And I'm like, maybe it just wasn't meant for me to have a relationship with him. I see who he is now. Maybe it's better off I'm not with him. Yeah. You know, I just had a family member pass my aunt who was like my second mom. I had to do four days with this man in, you know, the funeral parlor.

I was like a soldier. Just let it roll right off. My kids are like, that's him. This is everybody's intimidated from. I go, not me. I go, you? Daughter goes, no. I said, so let's just keep rocking. It is what it is. Because he's like a stone face, my dad. But I think sometimes in life things happen for a reason. And with him, you know, maybe it was because of my husband. But maybe if I didn't have my husband, it may have been for another reason. Some people shouldn't be parents. My mom's a great woman. Mm-hmm.

And she deals with a lot of stuff. But for him, I think he's just been a guy that should have had dogs because he's just very good to animals because animals can't talk back to you. Animals are going to do what you tell them to do. There's no compromise. There's no, well, you told me this and I believed you. No, no, I can't do it like that. We never said that. Kids are very big on that. Working on something and getting the goal. Here, look, I got all this stuff. You said I can move now. I never said that.

You have to stay here until you get married. Oh hell motherfucking. No, I don't care about your Italian traditions. I'm moving out beforehand. Yeah. If I get married or not, like I was very good, but in some degrees I was a rebel. You know what I mean? Did that happen after your grandfather passed away? Let's talk about that really quick. You're so you're grand. We left off where your grandfather got. I'm just, we'll tie this all in together, but we left off where your grandpa, um, you had just found out that he was in prison. You went to go visit him. Um,

How long did he stay in prison after that? And did you stay in communication with him? Well, it was always with my grandfather. You never knew that he wasn't around because he got to, you know, I guess in jail, it's the type of thing where you could use the phone. He was always on the goddamn phone. It got to the point like, what are we going to talk about now? Like during holiday, everyone's like pass the phone because he was always, you know, speaking to us. So there was nothing new in the past 10 minutes. Right. So we always got to talk. But from that time, from that time when I went to go see him again, I was like maybe like 10. Mm hmm.

The next time I got to go see him was in Nashville.

Wow. So it was kind of a double banger. I got to see the two men that I loved, Elvis Presley and my grandfather. Wow. Because Elvis and my grandfather, the only two men I've always put in my heart. I've been an Elvis fan since the day he died. So I'm not going to say my age, but I was five. So I became in love with Elvis. I was like, this is a cool trip. Yeah. But the only reason why I got to go and the whole family got to go because he was diagnosed with cancer. But between then.

I never got to go on a visit and I'll tell you why. Was he incarcerated in Nashville? Yeah. Oh, wow. So I never got to go, Bunny, because when I came home from that visit, my father didn't approve of it. He went nuts on my mother. My mother didn't tell him I was going. Now, mind you, we never discussed when I was little and went to go visit him. So when I went to that visit, so certain things set off in your brain.

I was a little chunky monkey. I liked to eat. I was a little cookie kid, which he used to feed me. Like, you know, mock my weight, but still give me cookies. He was making cookies and he'd be like, where were you today? The minute I got into it, I was like, what? Where were you? I said, I went to go visit Papa and Jill and put the cookies up in the air. So this became even more traumatic.

So it was like I said, when certain people shouldn't make me have kids. Did he not have a good relationship with your grandfather? No, he kissed his ass. They were fine. They were cool. But why should I? Again, this is still a man that I love. He's still part of the scenario of the family.

that you just took away without any reasoning of why. And this is what took place. My mother didn't tell him, I guess, because maybe she knew he was going to say no. Work that among yourselves. Not my problem. It shouldn't have been my problem, but it became my problem. And it was horrible. So I remember that. So up until that time, the next time I saw him, again, send major presents, always calling us, getting, you know, people doing sketches of you from jail. Like, you know, we always had stuff from him, but...

I never got to see him until I was in high school. And when I knew when they said he was going to pass. So they released him from jail. And did they release him because he was so sick? I'm sorry. I have like a little frog in my throat. It's the, I like drinking glass bottles. That's the way. Yes. Always. It's hard to know. Do you guys, do you want something to drink? We have one of these for you if you want. I'll take one later because I don't want her to bother with my lips. But I didn't get to see him till then. And yeah,

my father really put, made me feel worse than what it was. So I was dealing with leaving my grandfather behind in a very cold hospital. Like the closest thing I could, you know, at that time, it's like, it wasn't like the visits you go today. Like you go and like, sometimes you could be, you know, against somebody. Sometimes you could have the glass. It was just to me, it just reminds me a very sterile visit. Like,

like that hospital cold feel it was because maybe it was my first time i you know popped my cherry going to visit people in jail like you know that was it so i didn't get to see him until i was in a teen so he did the 13 years in jail came home did they let him go because he was sick or the freak knows he still he did his whole time he did his whole bed okay but it was so funny because i think he did like the two years before everything before he got sentenced and i think he did 13 years since the whole time but

13, right? Right. He dies, gets out. He dies 13 months later. Should have played a lot. 13 and 13, like crazy shit. And then he died. I was like, look at him. Died on my favorite holiday. He's like, there was no way I was ever going to forget him, but he made sure it was on Thanksgiving. Oh, grandpa. Yeah. So it's like kind of like maybe it was like, you know, to remember, I will never, ever forget him. But I was like, like stamping it more. I was like, wow, this is even crazier. But yeah.

So take me on that journey of your grandfather, pretty much the light of your life, the one man that you really look up to because you don't have a great relationship with your father. So he essentially was that father figure in your life. Mm-hmm.

losing him, dealing with the anxiety of pretty much bearing the weight of your parents' issues on your shoulders. How old were you when your grandfather passed away? I was about 22. About 22. Take me on this journey. Like, what does Ramona do without her grandfather in her life?

Well, you have to remember too, all that time while he was in jail, I had another grandfather. And again, when I did mob wives, I was, I always said that I'm never going to, never going to say something that people didn't know. Right. So people would have done their home. Like a lot of people do their research. So one of the things was when I originally said I was going to go do mob wives and I had to go meet an uncle about it. Cause he had to give me something. My grandmother, who was my father's mother passed. And he's like,

I hope you're not going to say anything about my father. So who do I go to? I go to the mafia, you know, the 411, the information book. I said, Karen, who the fuck was my grandfather? Well,

Well, your grandfather, meaning my father's dad, was the one who got my father into the mob or he was in his crew. I'm like, really? So now we start going through names. And I was like, what about this guy? I love how disconnected from it you are, though. Like Karen is so immersed in it. We grew up totally different. Her father told her everything. Yeah. Everything. This girl knew everything. So...

And I was like, well, what about what's his name? When he would come to my grandfather's house, he was a sharpshooter. This guy was. I was like, holy shit. So all these people that I thought were like regular people that never would think anything that they're about, they were really about it. But you would never think that.

Wow. So again, Karen was the one who told me if I had any questions. So here I am on a show, but I said to myself, I'm only going to talk about, I don't speak to my dad, so I'm not going to shine light on that. Yeah. I can't help what's going to come out if there's anything going to come out because he did it to himself. He was a grown man. He put himself in that lifestyle. Right. So my whole situation before my grandfather actually died, I still had another grandfather that was alive, but I wasn't close with him.

But my family was still anything that came into our home. If it was about anyone, it was a secret. Like even one time it was so crazy. The height of Karen's father situation. And before he got arrested and they were every, it's like, listen, dude, at the end of the day, you guys are going to the same spot every week. But John Gotti didn't care. They were filming it. So one time I'm watching the news inside and I see my father. Cause it's like, it's like they had a,

appointment every week. So there's my father-in-law news. I go in the bedroom to rip into my mother. She was just up two minutes ago. She's under the covers like this. I'm like making like she's snoring, like she's going to town store. I go, get up, please. The gig is up. Just stop. You know what I mean? So everything bunny. So it didn't end there. And even if it was a question, it was kind of like when, um,

People watch the Sopranos and she goes, what's the mafia? Are we in the mafia? I couldn't ask that at home because I was going to get lied to. Right. You know, because people still have legit jobs and, you know, they're still, you know, part of something that you can't get out of, you know.

I don't know how you get, how you, maybe you die. Maybe you rat, you know, guess like, however you join a gang, that's their whole, you know, oath. But I could never ask that. So the lies continued. They were just covered up in different ways. Yeah. So like with Karen's father situation, you know, then it became like, well, I said, Karen's father is Sammy the bull. Yeah. So with him, it was like,

I'm not going to turn my back on her. You know, whatever men do, you know, but a lot of people did. A lot of people did. Which is terrible because a child should never have to pay for the sins of the father. I've never believed that, you know. And she paid her own sins and she'll talk about it. It's no secret. She rebelled like a motherfucker. She said she did. She rebelled hardcore. And it was something... Rightfully so, though. You guys all, you know, were...

kind of born into a lifestyle that you didn't choose. And it's like, when you finally get that first taste of freedom and you're able to just say, fuck you to everybody. I mean, that's, I would, I would have done. I don't know if she told you, like when we went out and we didn't know, like every place you went, everybody winds it up knowing somebody in our family. So we would make up names. Yeah. She told me hers was Gina. Yeah. I would make

I would make up a name because I didn't want to be caught up in that and I didn't want to be in trouble because, again, she had a different lifestyle. She was allowed to go out. We had to sneak out of my house. But even when we would sneak out of her house, they admitted to her later on that the FBI agents were watching us come off the roof. We could have been dead. You're watching kids shimmy off the roof. They didn't give two shits.

They didn't, they didn't report it. They didn't call the police said there was, well, let them fall. Who gives a shit? I mean, I'm talking about a steep roof here. They didn't care. So we grew up differently. My family was more of a secret. So it always, I, you know, the closest thing, like this whole mob wife aesthetic, the closest thing I've ever lived to the Sopranos. Cause again, it roots from the Sopranos. It's the 25th anniversary. Um,

Um, that's how like all these women came up and, you know, Soprano Carmela, she is the number one TV mob wife, you know, cause everybody on our show was not a mob wife. It was just what the focus group, right. It was, you know, going on the tails of all the housewife shows that were, you know, very prominent. Who was an actual mob wife on the show? Anybody was Renee.

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Well, Hector really wasn't a made guy because he was Puerto Rican. Right. And, you know, that was very bad situation. That was all real TV. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's a whole fucking that, you know, something like that. So,

There wasn't really a mob wife on Mob Wives. It was just a word. I was the closest one becoming one because I was engaged to somebody at the time, but he got arrested while I was on the show. While you were on the show, I remember that. So let's circle back. So you move on. You're dealing with all this stuff personally. When does Mob Wives come knocking on your door? How old were you? Well, Mob Wives didn't come knocking on my door. Mob Wives, I was out of the country. Mm-hmm.

I had, Oh, is this way? Okay. So you've met your husband. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about the husband, the ex-husband, the deceased husband. He just recently just passed. So that was a whole other thing I had to deal with. Um, yeah. Can we talk about that? Yeah, no, it's fine. So, um, I met my ex-husband through, um,

one of these people's jobs that my parents placed me in. So you don't want me around this, but meanwhile, I'm working for people of such demeanor. So it was a mob affiliated job. Gotcha. So I wasn't Italian, correct? He wasn't Italian, but his partners were, his partners was a big guy. Okay. So here I am, I get this job. Guy totally wasn't my type. Um,

Had kids prior. I had the perfect boyfriend before. I had the one that looked like he was going to law school. He looked like the Ken. We were like... I always remember like that Brendan and Dylan from 90210. That was us. We did the Europe trip. We did the whole nine... But he was a psycho. Right. And... It's always the cute ones that are fucking weirdos. Really like... Like honestly, like the preppy murderer. Like he could have those tendencies. American psycho. Yes. That I...

got rid of. But now my, my husband was, who was actually my boss at the time. It's like the regular story, like the boss and the secretary fall in love with each other. They put me in charge of this office to basically like kind of watch him in a degree. And plus a lot of people couldn't understand his dialect. Cause even though he was Arab, he was, um, spent like 20 years in, uh,

Italy. He was an exchange student. So his accent was very different, but we ran one of the largest telecommunications company and that became a frigging shit show with the mob and this and that and all the stuff that was being exploited at the time. But he could sell ice to the Eskimos, my ex-husband. So basically it wasn't based on his looks because I had the best looking.

It was how he treated me, but this is where it comes into play. It was the height of when this movie was coming into. So I was still, didn't have a good relationship with my dad, was never close with him. This man working with him one-on-one, you know, everything I said like, hey, you should do this for your diet. Like it was a mutual respect and it gave me a, um, I worked for my position. I wasn't sleeping with him, anything like that. We didn't hook up at so much later on.

He did it in a way where he just disappeared. He started working from home. He did like reverse psychology where I grew to miss him. And then one day I was in the midst of buying, um, I had made a lot of money. I was buying my first apartment in battery park and I needed him for help because I told my parents originally, I'm going to save this money. I want to move out. When I came with the down payment, I never said that. So here I am a deer in the headlights, nobody helping me. Mm.

So he helped me. I didn't know anything about mortgages. I didn't know anything about co-ops. Nothing about that. Your family wouldn't help you? No, because he didn't want me to move out because he never thought I would save the money. Because I said, look, if I'm not married at this age, I'm bouncing. This is your dad? Yeah. And he's like, your mother doesn't want you to move either. And he tried to do some like reverse psychology, like, well, I'll move if I'm the problem. I go, you're not the problem.

I'm not living by the fact that I, because we're Italian, and then you could only leave if you're getting married. I'm not into that. Like I was kind of, I wasn't a wild child, but there's certain things that I believe that if I were a traditional, like old school way of thinking. When my father was different, because it's like when my uncle had passed in the movie, remember the guy that they made out to be the drug addict? The movie that we keep referring to as Donnie Brosco. Donnie Brosco. In case you guys didn't catch that. They made like my uncle...

you know, he had a problem who really didn't have, you know, have it coming up. A lot of people were on coke. It was the thing to do back then, you know, uh, the drug of the eighties and nineties. So long story short, my uncle was murdered from affiliation of the life. He was with one of his friends. They told him, don't stay with him. They killed him. But getting back to my father and his strictness,

We never really had, you know, at that age, I was still young. I was like maybe about 12. My grandfather was still alive. You know, he's in jail, so he couldn't handle it. He couldn't do all the preparation. My father was like, you can't watch TV. I'm like, what? Old school Italians, they believe when somebody dies, you can't even watch TV. Can't have music. I'm like,

Jesus Christ. Like it became really weird. Why is that? Is that like a respect factor? I guess maybe my father's, my father, my father is not, he's born here, but he lived with his grandparents. They lived in the house growing up. So he, he speaks Italian, had a lot of their traits. He's Sicilian. Like it's the hardest Italian. It's like rocks. They got brains like rocks. It's really bad. So then after that, I got shipped to his mother's house. And while my mother was mourning and we could have watched TV, but in my home,

Where I lived with my mom, we couldn't watch TV. Wow. So everything was different with my dad. He was very, very hard. So, you know, I was not close with him. And then again, his father was part of the lifestyle. He was, it was never discussed. So it was all these different things that took place. So now again, coming back to how I met my husband, it was the height of this movie being shot.

before I worked for my husband, I worked for one of the top law firms. My family got a copy of the script. I'm like, I'm not dealing with this shit. They put my, I should have let them leave my grandmother into it. I had my ex, um, um, the law, uh, place I work for the law firm. I made them write them a letter. They took my grandmother out of it because they made her like she was the annoying ex-wife. They didn't talk. Listen, they still have kids together. You

you know, he was married to a new person, but they had little, you know, little talk here and there, but it wasn't like, I'm going to kill him, all this bullshit. She caught him many times cheating. It was the end of it. He remarried. I love how Hollywood tries to paint jaded women as like the villain or the bad people when really everybody knows if you get fucking cheated on, you're going to die.

dislike the human who has fucking hurt you that bad. And she gave him so many different, different chances, my grandmother. And that was another thing too, as I grew older and they started telling me the story, you know, now you'd be like, if your friend has their husband cheese on them, you'd be like that mother effer. I still couldn't bring myself to see it because I was like, you know what? It's between them. I knew how to separate it. So I got a copy of the script while I'm working for my husband's, um, from the communications company. I made my old bosses take them out.

take the, uh, my grandmother out. Like they was like, listen, if you don't remove this lady, we're going to sue you. She's still alive. They remove her. So now I'm like, this is still not sitting right with me. I got to do something. I got to speak up for my grandfather because they waited for him to die. Mm.

And at the time it was very rare where you got paid for interviews. Barbara Walters, before my grandfather passed, offered him $2 million. Trust me, we could have used the money because everybody thought that our family made money off of this. And my grandfather had no money like that. He could have left. He's like, no, I'm not talking. He went out like a man's man. So they waited for him to die to put this movie out. So once I got this copy, I'm like,

this is some shit. This is not real. I knew that they were filming it in my old neighborhood, which I grew up in. So even though I hadn't been there since I was young, my cousin's mother still lived there. So I still knew in and out of the place. I went there. I scoped it. I brought my sister who my sister was funny. She was like when Karen, everybody went out. She was the brawler. Like they were fighting people, beating them up. I bring her there to meet. You're a brawler too. I've seen it on Mob Wives. She's hysterical crying. She brawls.

because now I get to go meet Pacino. I like basically stalk him. I'm like on stalker mode. I'm like, they're like, he'll be here soon. I know where his trailer is. I'm X everybody in the neighborhood. So I'm having breakfast in the local diner, the whole area. Um,

So then finally, I wait for him to come outside, like to go into his trailer. I'm like, Mr. Pacino. He's like, look, who's this girl? Who get like another fan? I was like, I want to talk to you about my grandfather, Lefty Guns Ruggiero. His mouth dropped. The guy goes one minute. He comes, he goes, he's going to take you inside. So my sister goes inside again, tough as nail. She starts hysterical crying. I go, what the freak are you crying about? Shut up. Get it together. I want to talk to this man. I brought all my proof. I brought my letters. I brought, you know, our pictures because a lot of people,

bunny, even like now I get weird DMS. I'm your grandfather's other daughter, dude, you'd be really old. And I don't think that's true. Like Karen has like, you know, someone saying that they're Karina's father, people, which, you know, are freaky. Yeah. So I came prepared with the truth just in case, because I could have been a

stalker liar. Yeah, for sure. I love that he was willing to take that meeting with you like that. Amazing man. So graceful because what I found out about Pacino is when he goes into character, he supposedly doesn't break it. So while he's on set, I was always like a method actor. He still continues it going. So honestly to meeting me probably would have been like a plus for him. So and he was so graceful. So nice. He did. He said something to me that made this whole horrible situation so much easier. He said Ramona

I'm going to take not only your grandfather, what I know about him from the book, but everybody else around him. And I'm going to make my own character based on that. Yes, it's based on your grandfather. Because I said, my grandfather, my grandmother's, his wife's mother came from Ellis Island. She was from Spain. So from that moment, she set foot in America. My great grandmother, my mother, my grandmother always worked in fashion. My mother went to FIT.

I was like, you have him looking like a schlep. Like that movie made him look like he, you know, he was a hobo where my grandfather was at the T. See the hat never even owned a hat like that. So they, you know, jizzed it up to make it more like maybe Hollywood make, make it look a certain way. My point of this meeting with Pacino was, um,

to make sure that he knew that he just had it when it came to the family, if there was going to be a part about that play that would love. Because regardless whatever went on with this family, this Costa Nostra family, he did love us. And I wanted them, if they were, because again, scripts change, it could go into certain things. I just wanted to make sure that I said my piece and paid my respect. It was like my last homage to him. Like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure that my, because I got a mouth when I want to use it.

is going to get known because this is crazy. And he said to me, everybody around him, this is what it's going to be. Hollywood has to do things differently. And he explained to me once they bought the book, the movie company bought the book, they're allowed to change it. So that's how they got to change it. Made that so much smoother for me. And I basically, at the end of it, it's like when I met another celebrity, I had to let them go because after I was...

I came, I got what I needed and I was like, thank you. Like I didn't, there was no reason for me to keep it going. Like I, you know, he was gracious enough. It was kind of like closure. Yes. To give me his time. Yeah. I felt like he probably would have talked to me. He was so nice and he was so gracious. He probably would have given me another hour, but I didn't need it. I got everything that I wanted right then and there. I said,

said my piece. I said, when it comes to the family, that's all it really was about. Anything else I couldn't control. After that, what a fucking clusterfuck. Oh, your family must have made so much money. First of all, dude, nobody needed the money and we didn't make any money. That was Donnie Brosco's thing. That was with the, you know, if you were educated, you knew it came from the book. We had nothing to do with it, but that's all I got.

So meeting my husband... It's crazy that Joe was able to make... Joe Pistone was able to make money off of it, but not your grandfather. My grandfather didn't want to because it was against his oath. He would never make... My grandfather was very old school. Yeah. So like I said, he wasn't like my father. Like, hey, you couldn't watch TV if somebody died. He wasn't like that, but old school in his values with this whole mob thing. And how I did learn that? Because I did get to listen to some of the tapes, you know, that they have on YouTube. And that...

Is that normal, Bunny? No. It's like, in a way, it like...

It gives me peace that I could get to hear my grandfather's voice, but it's weird that what I'm listening to. Right. You know what I mean? But then I'm like, hey, now I know why I get some anger issues or how I know maybe I get some backbone. And the best it'll be like, you know, I'll be such a curse. So my mother be like, don't curse. I'm like, listen, it's in the family genes. Or maybe I should have just been a dude. Like, I don't know. You know, it's crazy. But again, that's how...

My husband kind of like, I don't want to say weasel, but nestled his way because I was very vulnerable at that time. And he presented all the key factors that I needed. I needed someone to basically be there for me. And when the actual movie came out, you know where I was? I was in Jordan. I left the country. So you met your husband. Last we left off, your husband was helping you get this apartment. Did he help you get that apartment? I did get the apartment and I acquired it.

Before I started dating him, I still had the crazy ex-boyfriend at the time who I was like distancing and distancing. And then he's coming to my door with three carrot rings, fighting with security to try to get up, you know, come see me. And I was just totally done with him. But now he knew where I lived because I moved out of my parents' home. So with all this happening, you know,

my ex-husband who was very cunning knew how to set it up but we weren't together then he was just helping but I never and I said to my girlfriend said to me one of my best oh I think he likes you I go shut the fuck up like no he doesn't she saw it I couldn't because I just thought it was like a boss like a relationship like someone that was you know being there for me and

And I think it was the best thing that I did leave and go out of the country because I don't know if I could have handled, especially if it was this day and age. How did he talk you into leaving the country? Because that's huge to be able to be like, hey, I'm going to take this Italian princess and move her to Jordan. At that time, we were together. OK. And I had left to go get married and I left the country and I got married there.

Without your father and you aren't talking at this point, right? Because he knew you guys were dating. But I got married there. I stood there for like a month or two, came home. I got married a Muslim marriage. So it wasn't official. I didn't record it. So when I came home, certain things we separated. And I said, you know what? I don't know. Like, let me just see, you know, like a lot of the dust settled and my head was still a little bit

My mom wasn't talked to. My mom was destroyed. I was gone. It was like all these things and who was upset. It was a lot. I was still, it was still a lot. I was still like maybe like 24, 25. I was still young. Yeah. And, um, yeah, that's a baby. I still tried to like, we still try to set, keep away from each other. We hooked back up and that was the end of it.

So we had four kids. Well, but take me on this journey. It wasn't such an easy journey for you. Like you ended up having to fight for your kids. Can you tell me all about this? Well, you could read in between the lines. We had a very good marriage. Everything was fine. Um,

My story, I will fully tell. It's not like, oh my God, like I'm trying to like hold it. I can't tell it because if I was to tell it right now, a lot of that world still exists and why my marriage crumbled and why I wind up truly in the Middle East. I can't really fully say to, you know, the fullest degree because I have a son and I have kids. I don't want to talk about it now because-

everybody ain't gonna live forever so once certain people are where they belong possibly in hell then i'll put my book out gotcha and but what i could say is that um i wanted to go into jordan um i had i had to become a mother before a wife like i had to put the kids first even though we created these kids together and while we were married in america he was a wonderful father and

Things were really good. When I went over there, I knew in my head that I was only bringing them to see the kids. See your dad. Because I don't want it to be what happened to me and my grandfather just disappeared. Like, hey, now your father. Because up until a certain... Up until my husband told me that I'm going to Mexico. Things were getting weird in the house. Weird in a sense where he...

He was acting different. So I already knew the 411. I knew what was coming. Now, remember, if you sit back and I told you how I got the job, I got the job through people. Right. So now certain things were just crumbling down. And you already have that like abandonment issue. I don't know if it's okay to call it an abandonment issue. But even though your grandfather didn't mean to abandon you, that wound is still there.

Now I'm dealing with this again. Right. But now I'm responsible for lives and for kids. Yeah. So I'm like, shit, but I still don't want these kids not to be around their dad. So I'm thinking that he went to, told me he was going to, I think Mexico or something. So I'll call like the first two days, everything we're calling. And again, the marriage was becoming very strained because of certain components of people coming around. And, you know, and he was the type of guy like,

He didn't have a vicious bone in him. And I would have handled it a different way, but he wasn't built like that. And he had the right connects from the Middle East to handle it. That's all I'm going to say. And he wasn't about that. And calling every day, calling every day. Then eventually, we're good. We're speaking. The fourth day now, the phone crosses over. It fucking crosses over. It's in Arabic. I'm like, holy shit. He's in the fucking Middle East. I'm like, damn. This is really some shit now. I'm like, oh my God.

So I had to like. How many kids did you have at this time? Four. Oh, so you had popped. I had one. There wasn't even one. Oh my gosh. My age is kids with kids. Right.

right now. I have a 25, a 24, 23 and a 19. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I was busy girl. You guys, what's TV? You guys were making babies. It was TV, but I wanted to create my own family. I'm not like one of those women were like, Oh my God, we're going to have two kids because I had a, I had a great marriage. I had a great home. Everything was fine. Whatever God was going to bless us with was going to bless us with. I'm not going to lie after the fourth one,

because I had a miscarriage after that. After that, I was like, buddy, we need to do some type of protection because I didn't want to handle that miscarriage. But I think, again, everything in life happens for a reason because I had one miscarriage after my son was born. But the last one was like, I don't think God would have been like, you could do this with five kids. Listen, it's already predicted what's going to happen to you. So imagine even doing this with another kid. It was hard enough.

traveling over there. So I said, you know what? I'm not going to let the abandonment. My kids had the separation. I'm going to take them over there. I'm still going to get a divorce because I have to end this because I have to become a mother first. Right. And that was really hard. And,

Nobody understood it. And, um, I wanted them to see where the father was from. I went there before, love the country, love the people, love the culture. Jordan is very, um, at the time they had, um, the, the princess, she was American. So a lot of things were changed and it was different. And, um, I got stuck there for four, almost four years, three and a half years.

And I had, I think I had read somewhere that you got stuck there because your husband was holding on to one of the last baby's passport. You know, the tattoo a lot of people have or the saying there's a thin line between love and hate. Oh, sister, that one came full effect. Do I blame him?

but then do I understand that he was also trying to save his family? So certain things took place that, you know, did I add a little spark to the fire? Hell yeah. Because I just, I couldn't take it. My was so angry. There were certain things. My kids till this day, they were babies. That's why I said when people were like, Oh, you don't remember. My daughter was telling me the other day she broke down and she's like,

you don't remember that I remember when we went to that place and your nose was bleeding. And I'm like, I don't remember my nose being bleeding. But she remembers when her and her dad and myself had a pretty big altercation that we went to like kind of like a shelter. Like they compare their like battered women. And they gave him three choices. Either leave her alone. You could sign this piece of paper. Or if you bother again, like three things. What he did, he went to another country.

That was the last time that out of my four kids, all three of them ever seen him because I went to where he was in another country. I tracked him down there to try to go get a divorce. But what was it an abusive marriage? Again, it was a thin line between love and hate. There were certain things there he couldn't he couldn't take that I could.

Nobody ever thought that women with four kids were going to get up and get the fuck out of there in general or just leave in general. You strike me as that person. And I think back and I'm like, fuck, because a lot of people you hear, even in America, they stay because it's economically right. They stay because they don't want to have that responsibility by themselves. I was like, fuck this shit. I got to just do it because I had to be a parent first. Did I love the life that he provided? Hell yeah. Did

Did we, did he like become like the person that was like, Oh, if you, you know, you could have this, it was like, you know, rabbit, you know, putting the little carrot in front of the bunny's face, like that type of scenario. And I'm like, I had to pull back from that because I had to be responsible for these kids. Did they fully understand it? Do they may have some resentment? I don't know. But so many things became so displaced. And I also said, I don't want to raise my kids like, um, to be army brats in a sense.

And the best way that he could ever punish me was I got to go back to my family. That was the biggest punishment because there were certain things that I didn't want my kids to be around.

Like if I was married to him, you know, he wasn't around the people that got him involved in that business. They were no longer around. So I knew the minute that I was very grateful for my family taking me in because I had nothing coming back home. So you ended up going back home with the four babies. That was the biggest punishment. But before that, he tried everything to keep me there. I would have made it where if we could make it

where I could have still stood in the Middle East because my kids had the best education. They had an amazing education. If you lived there middle class, you were very rich. The homes were beautiful. The food was to die for.

If he would have made it where I could come home, I probably would have been down for it. But he's like, no. I'm like, no. Everybody come visit you here. I'm like, but when you see this shit on the news, they're like, they think the bombs are going off. Jordan's nothing like that. They think that because, you know, it was a time after 9-11. Right. So everybody thinks it's this whole big thing. And it's not like that. But to convince people you love...

You know, at the end, I had to send three children without my fourth because she didn't have a passport. Nobody would come get them. And my family loved my kids, but they were scared. So I had to get like an airline stewardess to pay for them to watch my kids on the plane. Everybody thought like, no, the minute they got off the plane, they were going to be beheaded. Like that was going to be the end of them. So also then I had a lot of issues over there. Like he was strong arming me where like, well, this could happen to you. Or one time we had, you know, when I was there, I said,

I'm going to be with you. Like I tried it, but then like, you know, money, I was like, I felt worse. I felt like I was in that harm's way. Like with my grandfather, I felt like the bottom was going to, I couldn't trust anymore. You didn't feel safe because what I told him was, you know, through the marriage, if I find out one thing, you're back even talking to these people. I get it now. Cause I'm much mature and I'm older, but I,

Then he couldn't tell me because he failed me as a husband. But then I also knew that he had no choice but to talk to these people. Because I said to them, I said, if you bother with these people again, it's the end of our marriage. Swear on the kids. He told me, I won't do it. He had no choice to. Did I make a lot of...

rash decisions probably was a very hot headed, but that was my way of protecting my children. Yeah. And I didn't want them to go through what you had to go through. And in a degree, you're trying to break generational trauma. And in a way, maybe they went through something worse because they don't have a dad. You know what I mean? So I don't know. There was no, I don't think there's any even side of this coin. They do know that I did everything to keep us together. Like, listen, he offered me a million dollars of money for the kids. Like, you know, he had tons of money.

But I was like, I'm not leaving my kids. Did he just step away from the kids after you moved back? No, he wanted, but he was here. I mean, I was here, he was there. Because that was a whole other issue. It wasn't like now anybody could come back over the border. There was a lot of shit. Yeah. Because he came from a country that he lived in Jordan, but he was originally from another country that's not recognized. Right. So his passport, so to come back into America, he had to go through all the process and getting all the paperwork because he was never fully a citizen. I was in the process of making him one. Right.

Paid millions of dollars in taxes but was never a citizen. It was like some fucked up shit. No, that sounds like the fucking government. You know, it is what it is. It wasn't like now, like you could, you know, walk over and nobody's going to bother you. It was different then. Like, you know, one time with the...

the immigration, they came to my house. He's like, I was doing my hair. I was like, you have to come home now. Immigration. I go, if these motherfuckers can't see all the toys at my house look like toys or what's that? This is a real marriage. Yeah. Then they really need to go get a better job. And I took my time and I went there for the interview. I was like,

And he was on the cusp of getting his nationality, but all the shit, the bottom fell out. So here I am trying to make everything nice, go to the country, and he just didn't want to let me leave. And then I found out throughout that I had legal issues back home because of him, because when he left, he left so many business things up in the air. He had no choice.

who's left holding the bag? The trophy wife. Mm-hmm. So who, if they can't get him, they're coming for me. Yeah, absolutely. So it was, it was basically, it's a lifetime movie. It's like the mob meets Not Without My Daughter meets some corporate like white collar shit. Oh,

And at the end of it, everybody's like, and you tried your hardest to get away from it. And you know, and then like, and when I did the show, I wanted it to kind of be a meaning for women to be like, listen, I get it. You know, so many people go through divorces and whatnot. Mob wives. Mob wives. And they did mob wives. And they, they came knocking on your door when you were in Jordan. No. Okay. So again, uh, one, uh, Karen was on the show. She was going, they were talking about doing the show again. It was never called mob wives. It was about all these girls, uh,

So I knew what they were getting into. So when I came back, it was their first season. So here I am now. I'm just thrown back to some old friends. Karen had just moved back to Arizona, which was nice. So she was kind of like when I got there, she was like, in a sense, a newbie of being back, officially moved back. Right. Some of the girls, like I said, you know, Renee's family did holidays with them, whatnot. Right.

So they were like the first season, like, you know, do you want to be on it? I had to turn it down because I had all these legal issues. He left me with a bag of shit. I couldn't even get a Toys R Us credit card. Like everything was fucked up from top to bottom. You know, I was left like, cause we left the house. It was like, we left like thieves in the night. I only packed.

for two weeks because my kids were enrolled to go to school and here I am got stuck there all these years so when I came back I was like no I can't do it now I don't know what my fate is going to be with the law I don't know I had to check in with like some uh the DA or some no the I don't know some high guy up in uh

in the government to make sure I wasn't like when he saw the case, I'm like, listen, I had nothing to do. There was charges brought up on you because they were never brought up on me. They were trying to come up with something because of my husband. So when I finally got one of the prosecutors on the he goes, I've been following this case. I go, what case? I said, did anybody did my husband hold a gun to anybody's head? You only know about this case because it originally started organized crime. The people that he's involved with now because he had to up and leave because he owed people money.

They don't understand that the guy had to go. So right now you're going on something that had, this is not about the mom. So if you, so he's like,

Yeah, you're right. So they couldn't do anything to me. So they were trying to like make me like a martyr, like maybe he'll come back and we'll take the wife down. But there was nothing to take me down for. Goodness. They'll go to any lengths. Any lengths. Yeah. So after a while, I was like... I thought women and children were off limits. Not to the feds. Okay. I mean, please. I got hit with so many different things that were just so unethical. She said, please. It's just like, when I tell you it's a book, it's a story, it's a whole fucking lifetime. And...

It just became so insane with everything that was happening. So when the show took place, I said, listen, guys, I don't know what's going to happen now. My family took me back in.

You know, I had to go live, which was very humbling. Had to live with my aunt, used to having my own house. I built a 30,000 square foot in Atlanta, never got to live in. Wow. You know, my dream home to go to live in to a house where we're sharing bedrooms, but I had no place to go. But still, I appreciate it. But it's still now it's somebody else's. It's humbling. Yeah. Somebody else's rules. Right. Somebody else's way of, you know, authority in the home.

So that was the biggest punishment I felt from my divorce. If you had to say like, hey, Ramona, this is what was worse, losing money or that? That because it also brought me back to a place where I didn't want to

My parents and my family are good people. Like, you know, they they just have a way of secretive or maybe the way that they believe. And, you know, for me, I'm like, whatever my kids decide to do in their life, even if they wanted it to be, you know, in a relationship where somebody is not the same color, somebody is not the same nationality. I'm going to be like, listen, it's not going to be easy. But if that's what you want to do, I'm here for you. Yeah. And my family. Oh, hell no. You'll be disowned. You

you won't be you know what I mean like if say if you were to marry how far has that gotten them you know like being secretive old school yeah it's just it's the law of their way yeah you know Karen has an interracial baby that would have never flown my home yeah ever ever ever do they consider your kids interracial because that was like the weirdest thing it's like so weird because even when I came back home and I'll talk to my Latin friends they're like you're white I'm like but what the fuck are

fuck are you like i never saw my friends that are latin not white right so when to see this the only way that i found out that people judge differently is when i moved to good old atlanta georgia so we lived there for many years the good old south love the south i really did i loved it if i could have been lived there forever and not have any this happen ramona you want to be on tv or you want to live happily in atlanta oh honey i'll take that any day yeah how i saw the racism was that um

I was like, listen, there was nobody going to outshine me. Like when it came to like selling stuff, you know, like the PTA mom, my daughter came, my son came home. He had to sell all this shit. I fucking rocked it. I killed it. I sold everything to everybody we knew. They were so nice on the recording back in the day. You had the recordings on the home phone. Hi, Ramon. I'm so happy you won you this, you're that you're great. The minute I call back and

And she heard that Yankee accent. Oh, it was downhill. They didn't like me. So I got a little bit taste of the South, even though Atlanta is the melting pot, that town is ran by old money. Yeah. And once they got my New York accent and they're like, so that's where I first discovered that. The second thing, when my son came home, he said, what's this little, he goes, what's, I said, what did you say? Because his last name was Arabic and they considered them

I had to explain to them. So that's what they called him at school. They said, so where'd it come from? It had to come from somebody's parents because again, he was carrying the Arabic last name and that's where, you know, this whole, I was like, oh Giovanni. And I, you know, the kid, he's got an Italian name with an Arabic last. So it was, it was a lesson, but that's where I knew that,

people would be like different colors you know what I mean I never unless you were like black be like which I have many black friends I don't you know I always thought like somebody if they were Spanish or they were white you know what I mean it's just so different how people are like no because you're white I'm like to my friend she'll know I'm Latin so it's like how everybody looks at it's everywhere I never looked at anybody's a true color unless it was like actually said out loud I never really so in the south that's what it was about but I

I guess because my husband was light, you know, they can never really say anything like as far as like, you know, you know, yeah. Shame to you. Where like they're having like an interracial child. Right. Like, you know, a mixed baby. Like, you know, you can never come home and date a black guy. I'm like,

Can I just date her with the fuck I want to date? Yeah. It wasn't like my father would find out if I was doing something on him, like say on the weekend by Tuesday is as much hush hush. We thought we would, you know, keep it. He would find out. I've had friends, you know, tell me that your father, Jesus never came home and told me, um, some guy that I thought it was cool to like have in my sweet 16. He was, you know, we were together like dating, you know, wasn't even having sex then nothing. My father chased the guy down in the mall with a hammer.

But I didn't know about it. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, again, with the double lives. Then I'm like seeing this other guy. He's like, when I'm older, he's like so hot. I had to break it off with him because somebody lived on the block that knew my father. So it was like, because I could never say where I truly was. Right. So I was just like, I wasn't, I never...

I was the type of girl that I never wanted to do drugs because I saw, you know, my family, there were alcoholism in it. My uncle would drink. My aunt would drink once in a while. My uncle went through the other situation on the other side of the family with the, um, the drug. So I knew to always stay away from that. Yeah. So when I went out, I wasn't like that type of partier. Um,

I just wanted to go out and be free. Yeah. You know what I mean? And just have a good time and not be somebody's daughter, somebody's granddaughter, somebody's niece. I just wanted to be like everybody else. But it was very hard for us because New York was ran by...

A lot of MLB. So speaking of MLB, let's talk about how you got integrated into the whole Mob Wives thing and like take me on that journey with you because you're just coming home. Just coming home. I was asked to do it the first year I had her. I had any client. Yep.

Then came when these other girls got wind of it. Holy shit. You got to think like, oh my God, that, you know, the devil was coming to be on the show. They didn't want it because it all came down to money. Nobody wanted to share with another girl. Like, you know how in Atlanta Housewives you get a peach? Yeah. They don't want nobody else on the show. Karen was down for it. So they had a meeting among the minds. And with, you know, with some of the producers. They didn't want you on the show. No. Okay. Some of the girls didn't.

And mind you, one of these girls in particular, when I did come home, I was partying with her. There was no qualms then, but when it was like, we're going to put Ramon on the show. Which one? Who is it?

Her name starts with a D. Oh, okay. Yeah. Starts with a D. She didn't want me on the show. And how I knew about it was because Carla, who was very close with her because she, like they had a relationship because Carla's father-in-law delivered Dorita's baby. So Carla, after her and Dorita had a falling out, came and told us what was taking place. And she said, she didn't want you there. She goes, I didn't know any better because I was just, you know, following the code. She was my friend. So long story short, um,

I became on the show and oh my God, like we were just cool last week now. But again, you're not going to abuse Karen in front of me. Right. That was, that was a crazy iconic episode though. You're mouth bleeding and you just literally scream like, like,

I, you would put the fear of God in anybody trying to get to her because it was just, it was just like, you know what? Scared of who, who are we, who are we supposed to be scared of? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, I had my sister's ex-boyfriend wasn't really a tough kid. You know, he went, she went to jail for murder. You know why?

He punched somebody, had a fight, punched somebody. The kid went down and he died because he hit his head. Anybody's tough in their own sense. Right. Just, you know what I mean? The quietest person in the room could be the toughest. Right. You know what I'm saying? I'm not into all that rah-rah shit, but if that, you're selling yourself as a character. Cool. Nobody's saying you didn't have your brawls back in the day. Fine. But a lot of that stuff, it was a real shit show.

Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of... It's sad because, you know, you guys were so iconic and just that was a moment in time that was just like... That was really amazing TV. It was unscripted. It was real raw emotions. Like, you could tell you guys really had...

history and like, I don't want to say beef, but just like unresolved shit that you guys all brought to the table and it just played out on TV. And that's what made for such great TV. And I think it's so sad now because there's such a rift between you guys. You know, as far as the riff is concerned,

If you really think about it, if it wasn't for that show, none of these people would be hanging out. And they didn't. They hung out when they were younger. They had a past. Like, for example, Dorita was like my sister's friend and Karen's friend. I really didn't associate so much with them. But that taught me it was my boyfriend mode of,

But the whole thing is like, you know, when you sign up for this, they put you in these scenarios. That's why, like I said, when I watch your stuff, it's real because nobody's scripting it. They're not putting you, they're not putting you bunny with the neighbor that you never would talk to. Right. Because they've signed on for the show. Right. You know, I can handle anything that's thrown to me, but sometimes it's like they had you to a degree faking it's a, you know, just funk it's a fake it. However the fuck you say it. It was just like, I was dumbfounded. I was like, wait, what?

Like one time when I was on the show and they're like, where's Ramona? I just signed up for the show. They're like, where's Ramona? Karen's like, oh, I don't know. She'll be back later. Karen didn't want to say where it was. I was fucking getting arrested with my boyfriend at the time, my fiance. And so now we have to reenact this because obviously when this takes place, because nobody's

No, it's not like big brother that the cameras are in your house. Yeah. So they're like, and I love him and I get it. And Adam, he's so great. He didn't, now he understands us. But when he was first working with us, he's like, who's Adam? Is he the producer? Adam, love you, Adam. He is the producer of the show. And he's like, come on, boo boo. You know, you were crying. I was like, I wasn't fucking crying. Then I'm thinking to myself, like I, after I went home after doing the scene, cause he had to reenact it. I'm like, is there something wrong with me? Cause I didn't cry.

Because they wanted me to call Karen. She's like, no, you were crying. I go, no, I wasn't. And Karen's like, well, how would you do it? She'd be like, call me.

you know, come here now. I want to see you. We would never talk on the phone. Yeah. I would never, never give it like I was arrested. I would never say anything in general. That's how we were brought up. So when that happened, so a lot of things on the show, like they put you in scenarios that you wouldn't be a part of. Right. Like the whole thing with Karen and Lee, it was dead, but it made good TV. So now you're bringing these two, you're,

bringing up old wounds and it's getting worse yeah and then you know he has a disgusting mouth her husband and he said a lot of bad things about karen that yo dude when you broke up with her you just wanted to go your own way it was what it was everybody went in peace now you're calling her all these things you're calling her you're calling her daughter like we don't do that yeah and it was sad it was sad it was a lot of sad things you know on the show it's

Made up a treat. We were cool. Then one time on call, I had it like and then we were all like coming together to see if we could have certain things that when we want to renegotiate the contract and all the bullshit. And I thought we were cool. And I just retweeted something that Carla said. And she blocked me from them.

So I'm just like, did I forget to send you a Ramadan card? Cause she, you know, she's Muslim. Did I forget to like, who's Muslim? Greta. Oh, wow. Did I forget to like, you know, say something to you that I, you know what I mean? Like, what did I do to you? Right. But it was because of that. So, and again, she was just looking for a way to like separate, you know what I mean? And again, nobody was ever trying to flex, you know, who they were on the show because when they did have this meeting, they said, so if we're going to have the show and this is going to be the name of it,

This girl deserves to be here more than any of you. Because like I told you, my grandfather who was with Karen's father, that's on my father's side. Then you have my real grandfather from the Donnie Brasco movie. Yeah. I'm dating somebody that obviously just made the news and we were going to get him married on TV. But, you know, he was in the life. And, you know, everything that took place. My uncle died. Like there were real issues that took place. But I was never like that. Like not that like...

If we could all do something together and make money, why the hell not? It came a lot of jealousy. And I see that with other maybe housewife shows, but other housewife shows had amazing management. Amazing. That these women are making bank. Nobody walked off the show rich. This podcast is brought to you by eHarmony. The

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Now.

Nobody helped you guys. It was just kind of like they just, I don't want to, you know, I'll use the term loosely, but it was almost like they just used you guys for views. Well, I mean, you're in the industry now. There's no way that you could be a manager and be a producer of the show. It's double dipping. That's what we were up against. So even though your manager, does your manager get you deals and she's entitled to it? So whatever I brought in, it was like being an escort. I had to give it to you no matter what. And then at the end of it, what we found out, me and Karen, that Drita and Carla had...

fired the management team, which was producer Jennifer Graziano. And we're supposed to be child of a friend. So they're not paying you, but us struggling moms.

Are paying you. Wow. So Drita's even making more money. Carl is even making more money because they're not giving to. When I was supposed to do the third season, I was supposed to get a raise and you were supposed to negotiate for me being like in the opening. But you couldn't because it cost too much money because that would come out of your pocket. And then later on... Lots of shady business. A lot of shady business. Wow. A lot of shady business. And it got a little ugly for a minute when it like certain things took place when, you know, we quit or...

in my terms i made sure that i got fired because there was a different clause in it because but it winds up in a sense like if i would have if i would have gotten fired if i would have quit then there were certain things i couldn't do but they still blocked me on vh1 because that's where i was supposed to do something with the girl tony from bmf wow and she told me she goes you're black bolt and on vh1 she goes an mtv because i sold i signed i don't know what i was signing

Signed over my likelihood. Right. So I couldn't, I couldn't be on any other show, even though I was still part of dating somebody incarcerated. Cause that's what the new BMF show was about. It was about all these women coming together and dating men. And I made a relationship with these girls. So I said, forget it. You know, whatever took place with the show and it was bad blood, but nobody walked away rich. Not like it was, it was, I made more money with my family staying home. My family giving me opposed to what I did on the show.

So as much as I had issues with my family being strict, they really came through with everything else. So it's like, you know what I mean? So I was kind of very grateful. Yeah. You know, do I, um, did I raise my children differently? Yes. They need to know the truth. I'd never want them to be blindsided. I,

I always told him, if there's anything you want to ask me, ask me. Whatever you're into, God forbid you get into trouble, let me know. I'm always going to be, I'm going to yell because that's just what I do, but I'm always going to have your back. That's how I am with our daughter. I'm just like, tell me before I find out from somebody else because if I find out from somebody else, you're in trouble. If I find out from you, you have a chance. You know, you could save them.

Cause they're, you know, you're young. I don't, I want somebody to have my back. Cause I was always very sneaky. I had to grow up to be that way because it was either that or, or how

have a boring childhood. Yeah. I wasn't, you know what I mean? Like I don't, I wanted it. I want, and I'm glad that I got to experience like going out and going to doing all these different things. And there were some situations we could have got pretty hurt, but you know, God watched us. I think that's part of growing up though. Yeah. You know, God made sure that we were okay. But the show in so many different outlets, it puts you in scenarios that you never ever would have had yourself into. Like everything was a fucking party.

Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? And alcohol heightens things. And I'm sure, you know, ego was the biggest thing. Yeah. Ego, alcohol, fucking all of it. I remember I was like, I wasn't being a key. I was being a keyboard warrior answering back.

because let me tell you again, when I came on the show, it was the first season, all the girls. So the way that they pitched me the second season was like the Italian Omarosa. Omarosa, how she was on one of the reality shows. Oh yeah. Omarosa. Yep. So they made me out to be like her. So I'm like,

Now I'm going up against the fan's favorite. Okay. Because this Drita is picking on my cousin. So I'm not going to stand by. First of all, there's no reason to fight. Yeah. You could talk it out. Like this could be, but now we got our egos are, you know, really exploding. And this is what the people want. And boom, boom, bop. And I'm like, Oh God, please just let me just control this. You gotta see how people work. This was the height of Twitter.

Twitter is rough. It has a rough crowd. But to remember, this was the height of it. So my boyfriend's like, come on, we have dinner. I'm like, no, because people like, and I'm like people saying, I go and I go, this is the reason what I tell them in person. This is the reason why people swallow their kids. Like, in other words, they should have swallowed you while giving a blowjob. Your mother should have never had you. Yeah.

The frigging what do you call hits me up. They're like, Feej one, you can't talk like that. Why not? Do you see what they're saying to me? So now you're even censoring what the hell I'm answering back in real life. Frigging Twitter. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So now like they're watching you. That's why I won't sell our shows that I do that my my production company does the Bunny XO show on the meet the D forwards because I you're just you give up so much control. Yeah, you're not going to control anything. The narrative editing is a motherfucker. Oh, for sure.

They can make a whole fucking situation that isn't even there just from sound bites of things that you guys say. It's crazy. Well, that's what they did. Then later on, we stepped into some other, you know, into the light of say this word. You got to do it because they're your boss. You're getting paid. Wow. And then they would place it someplace else. Wow.

And then, you know, there were a lot of people. It's like entrapment. Yeah, like Adam was on our team and he was great and he understood what was going on. But again, it was just, it started taking a better turn going into my second season. But then after that, that year when we found out some stuff, I was like,

I'm out. Like it was either going to be this way or that way. Yeah. And I just got a bad taste because money is a lot of time the root of all evil. It is. And that's what truly has happened. And people could say whatever they want to say. They could go around town saying whatever they want to say. I could give two shits because my listen, I was very grateful because I got to support my children. But what people don't understand with or without Mob Wives, I still made it. Like the point of making it is

I got to raise my children. Yeah. I got to, I still, I live better than I lived before. A present mom. So what I, you know, it got to be where one time I remember Renee, she's like, with the Twitter, again with the fucking Twitter. She's like, Renee is hilarious. Oh, sister. And like, she apologized. We worked things out. Listen, you know, when you speak to her, like, she has always have a soft spot,

soft spot in my heart because when my wife started, nobody had money like that. Ask her who gave him money to go to Vegas to when you went to California to go to show. I handed her money. The poor girl that just came back had nothing.

nothing who was taking the nail polish off your toes because you had to go in to get yourself clean. I wanted her to get better. So with the, without the show, she'll always hold us, you know, a soft spot in my heart. We didn't speak to for each other for a while. Cause she didn't know certain things. And when she got privy to it, things got better. But one time she tweeted, she's like,

Yeah, my sister's fed you. I said, well, we'll back up the bus, baby. The only people that ever fed me was my mother's tit and maybe a boyfriend. Other than that, I've always fed myself. I've been working since I'm 14 years old. That was another thing. You know, everybody thinks like, oh, my God, the mob. My parents made us work. Karen worked. I worked. We weren't like, you know, like spoiled. We weren't like a trust. Yeah. Some people are.

Renee never works. So throughout this lifestyle, there's different ways that you handle in your house. My house was very strict. My house, we never discussed the word mob. I had to get a job. Karen's house wasn't as strict, but she had to get a job. Like,

Like, you know, they wanted those foundations. And I, you know, much as my father, I thank him for that because if I didn't, maybe I'd be lost. Poor Renee, she really never had a steady job. She even tells me, she's like, you know, you girls, you have a business. I'm so happy for you. She doesn't have any hate in her heart. Yeah. But it just, it just created a snowball of monsters. But honestly,

I was very appreciative because it helped feed my children at that time. And I was fresh coming home to the second year. But if people said to me, what would you rather do? Have a business knowing you're successful or being in...

you know, an everyday job that, you know, you could really like have a business. I would pick that because this comes in a lot of shit. Yeah. And I'm not even, I'm not even like famous, famous. So imagine the people that are truly famous. You know, I've had some stalkers here and there that, you know, Karen and I, we owned a pizzeria and I'm like, we thought this guy was really coming because the stuff that he was saying, it was scary. Yeah.

You know, because we're out there. Now we can't like... Because when I go places, I usually say where I am after. Yeah. Not because I'm no big deal because there's weirdos. Well, you have to. Yeah. People are just so crazy nowadays. But in the pizzeria, we were sitting ducks. Yeah. You know? So it was different. But I always said like, listen, these people that...

they're just out of their way to be mean yeah like oh the people online reading comments like how does she remember she was a baby another liar oh my god her voice is so nasal no shit Sherlock I'm supposed to get my fucking nose done because I have my nose inside his old cave like I think it gives you character though no but I love my nose that's the whole thing I want to find a person that is not going to change my nose but inside I literally I was there the other day he's like how do you breathe I go

This is what I'm here for. He's like, oh no, it's like literally caved. He's like, you have the smallest canal. But my point is like, yes, she's a nasal bitch. She talks like the next, no shit. Like, what is your point? Like, why, why are you going out of your day to say that? I don't remember something when I was nine. I totally do. People. I remember when I was five and I went to jail, like,

People on the internet are a different beast. It's bullying. Yeah. And this is why a lot of these kids stand up against it because I just don't think it's right, dude. It's not right. Yeah. And especially now that mental health is such a huge topic of conversation. I really think that these platforms need to start cracking down on bullies.

It's not okay. It's not okay to just spew whatever the fuck you think out of your mouth that is harmful and hurtful to somebody, especially with children on the internet. Are children supposed to be on the internet? No, the parents should definitely govern that a lot more, but you can't literally, you know,

be over your kid's shoulder. You can't because they're going to have a friend. They're going to have somebody. Exactly. They're going to get to it. Yes, exactly. So it's like, I just, these platforms, I've been working with this foundation and I'm hoping to do a lot more with them, but they, you know, do a bunch of stuff for cyberbullying and it, because it personally affected the man who runs the organization. So I just feel so strongly about it. It's not okay what people say. And it's also about images. Like I, the only thing I commend Facebook about when they took away the likes is

Because a lot of, you know, little girls are like, I'm not getting that many likes. Or people are, like, feeling bad for themselves. And it's very easy. For example, like your husband's song, Save Me. To me, I don't do drugs. I don't drink. But I relate it into other ways because you could fall into depression. Yeah. And, like, I have fibromyalgia. So I had to step back from a lot of stuff. And here I am, not the girl going with all my friends to the dinners or seeing all my other friends. Because I was that person. My friends range from...

Queens to the city to all over. And I was always there for everybody going out. They're like, where's Ramona? They didn't understand. But with that came a sense of like depression in a way, because I wasn't that same girl anymore that used to laugh and what happened to her. So it's like people don't get it how easily you could feel depressed on so many different levels. It doesn't have to be from actually a substance abuse. It could be from your inner depression.

Could be from autoimmune trauma. Trauma. Well, that's what they're saying. That autoimmune is caused by trauma. You know, how the hell did nobody in my family that I know of has fibromyalgia or neuropathy? I wanted up with all the stress as a child. I want to go to her, but I know it'd be so much pain. You ever see the woman? She's like, she takes all the stress out of you. And she like, basically like, yeah, one of those. And I'm like, you scream. People cry. Yeah.

And she's in Cali and I'm like, am I ready for that? But that's built up trauma. Because that's opening a Pandora's box too. Once you open that up, you have to deal with everything that you start feeling too. And it's like a lot of different things that I know that I have within me, but it has to be up to me when I'm ready. You also battled an eating disorder, correct? No, I was just always chubby. Oh, no.

I could have swore that we had talked about an eating disorder, but maybe. No, like that, you know, when I was younger, I was, you know, a little bit overweight and I had that. And, but nothing like, no. Do you still battle with depression and anxiety? I have my moments. Older. Do you do therapy? Cause I asked Karen the same question and she said she's never done therapy. And I was blown away by that because I was like,

how out of all the shit you guys have been through, like I would think now in your lives, like therapy would be just essential. Well, put it to you this way. When I was away in Jordan, my therapy was whatever I was allowed to listen to on YouTube because the music was certain degree was restricted. So it was music. Music was my therapy. That was my outlet. When I was younger, it was writing. Um,

When I came home, I didn't know if I was going to be in trouble to go to jail. So I'm like talking to this guy and I'm like, he's a therapist. I'm like, this is some bullshit. Because unless I'm really ready, I can tell you whatever. Right. To make this, you know what I mean? To make this kind of like work in my favor. But I'm like, I think the therapy that I would need is,

It goes back to the issues of abandonment and stuff like that. And I think I have to be fully ready. Yeah. To open those. Because it goes, you know, it goes into like a lot of other things. It's like, there's no reason why I should remember what that jail sounds like. There's no reason why I should remember like how cold it was. Again, I don't remember what I ate two days ago.

you know, I do need therapy, but I also think it's really important about finding the right person. I don't know if I trust anybody. Like how I'm like, here we go back to the Sopranos. Yeah. You know, he found her a lot of people. And I just feel this day and age with therapy. They're like, here's a pill, like a fibromyalgia. Here's a pill. Oh,

Oh, so you want me to take Lyrica? Do you know Lyrica is for people that have seizures? It's a fucking band-aid. I don't need a band-aid, dude. I need like if you could help me, fine. I'm not into band-aids. That's why I do holistic. That's why I always do holistic Eastern medicine, not Western medicine, because Western medicine, all they want to do is throw pills. They tried to put me on fucking blood pressure pills last year, and it came down to the fact that I was allergic to rice.

Wow. And if I had not advocated for myself and done blood work and studied and did all the shit on my own, I would have been on fucking blood pressure pills. You're smart as fuck. I appreciate you, but I just knew that it was, it wasn't my blood pressure. I knew something was triggering it, you know, and you have to be your own advocate when it comes to this. Cause I'll relate to you. Like I'll go into like a meeting with the doctor and he'll tell me something like, I'll get the gist of it, but I'll forget. Yeah. So like I get all the things you're saying and I can relate to it, but I'm like, this bitch is mad.

point about everything. She knows how to say all the words. She'll be like, she does. She knows her research. But like, for me, I'm all about being holistic. And it was so funny because Karen, like she, you know, she tries to bust my balls. She'd be like,

They had pizza last week. She's like, you want pizza? I was like, no. She goes, why? Because you want to be skinny because you're going on bunny. I'm like, no, jerk off. I can't eat cheese for another three weeks. Or the gluten. Cheese. And I can't do steak right now because my cholesterol is through the roof. And I'm trying to take my blood because I'm testing it again because I don't want to go on goddamn medicine. I had an issue with my heart. This guy, everything. I'm like, okay.

yeah for the rest of my life yes they will and they have no problem they get paid off of it well they get they get paid to keep you sick no big pharma doesn't make money off healing people so it's like they want to keep you sick

But you have to be your own advocate. If the best thing, and this is my, everybody, all my listeners know this. I advocate for getting your own blood work done. Yes. You can go to any fucking anytime labs. They'll give you your blood work. But there's an extensive blood you have to get done. I forgot what it's called. It's a different, it's a different test. Like there's, when I had gone to this one doctor, he did more than,

than what the regular doctor would do. I forgot what it's called again. I'm not good with all the names. All the panels. You have to do hormones. You have to do the heart. They're all separate panels. And it's expensive. But it's like you have to do that unless you're going to be stuck taking pills. You have to advocate for yourself. To be truly healthy in America, you need to have money. Vitamins cost a shitload of money. They're a couple hundred a month. It's so sad. You have to make sure that...

when I was scared shitless about two years ago, I thought like I was going to have a heart attack. They were going to put a stint the whole nine. He put me on cholesterol medicine. And then with this new doctor, I saw he goes, did he ever bother to check you again? He goes, your cholesterol is too low. Get off of it. And I said, holy fuck. And then they're like,

they make money off of this yeah so i was like you know what never again so i try to do things where i could heal myself because i'm responsible nobody else really the best thing that you can do for yourself and it was it was very hard for me but i had to do an elimination diet and i haven't had sugar in over a year and it is the best thing i've ever done for my life i'll eat gluten here and there but i changed my entire diet last year and it was the most healing thing i've ever done you know that um i put a post about this

Sugar is harder to get off than cocaine. Oh, yeah. So for me, that's my issue. Coconut sugar. Coconut sugar. But again, this is my problem about growing up. Maybe this is what you're talking about, but the eating disorder...

I knew to stay away from alcohol. I knew to stay away from drugs. Here, everybody's like, if I would have known the sugar could lead to, which in my family, there's diabetes and there's, you know, all these other issues, high blood pressure. I would have stood away from it because I was so scared. But no, here's a cookie. Here's an M&M, all this other stuff. We didn't know that. So now it's like I'm too late in the game and I'm like... No, but you're not. No, but you've known it. So now...

Do I... Like something you said about your husband, like somebody had said to you, which I was commending you, you were like, does it bother you that he drinks and he smokes? And you said, whenever he's ready. Yeah. If he wants to go clean, he will. The same thing. I'm eliminating. I'm doing better choices. But I know when I'm fully ready, it's going to come. Because I know at the end, if I don't, I could lose a fucking toe. Or go on dialysis. Don't be losing toes. But you know what I'm saying? You see this crazy shit. And I'm like, I don't want to be this...

you know that person like here i come with you know here's grandma but she's got no toe and listen that ass with a walking chair will be hot okay just wear those little body suits you'll be good bling the walker out no but you just you have to be your own advocate and it's all about what you put in your body i put the glass bottle years ago everything was glass yeah but now

Plastic. Plastic. Yep. You go in the freezer, it takes, puts shit into the water. All of it. You put it in the sun, there's shit in the water. But now, oh, we can't because it's dangerous. Snapple was always with glass. All of a sudden, the motherfuckers want plastic. Yeah. It's just because it's easier. Yeah. And cheaper. But they have to make us sick because...

Because they make the money off of it. If you know, you know. Yeah, absolutely. I can preach this all day long. We could talk about this all day long because it's like one of my favorite topics is health because you become obsessed with it. As you get older, you realize you're not fucking immortal. You have to do things to survive.

to make sure that I think what really struck a chord was inheriting, um, custody of both of my parents as they're dying. And I got to see what they're dying, what, what my mom died from. And now I get to see what my dad is dying from. And that's a wake up call.

Yes. You know, and your own health suffers from it too. And you just get to a point in life where you're like, you know what? I don't want to be like this. I want, when I'm old, I don't want to have to worry about my, you know, kid taking care of me. I want to be able to, you know, still have a good mind and some somewhat of like a little bit of health. So I was like, if I start now, maybe I'll be on the road to, you know, redemption by the time I'm fucking 70. Yeah, you could fix a couple of things that need to be restoring and just kind of get like a little bit of a clean pass.

Yeah. Yeah. It is what it is. And that was like one of the things that I find like maybe in a sense that, yes, I got fibromyalgia, I got neuropathy, but I got that like after the show. And again, it was built up trauma and the show, um,

It led me into like after that to start meditating and start making intention candles and just like doing certain things to find my peace where I knew that if I would have stood on that show, it never would have been because that shit was a lot of times. People don't get, it's like wasn't, didn't end when you would just say, okay, everybody go home, see you tomorrow. Yeah. We all lived in the same area, Bunny. Mm.

So, but then it also makes you think, gee, if you're really about it, why don't you come ring my fucking doorbell? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it was kind of like, if you were really smart, like if they really, we could have done that. Like we could have continued if this is what you want to do, but yeah.

You're only going to make it so escalated when the cameras are rolling. But it was like, I, my biggest thing going on camera was like, okay, how am I going to look? And what's my outfit? Other than that, I could be myself more than 24 seven. I don't have a problem. But with that, I think after leaving it and everything else, um,

I don't think if I would have had all these issues going on, I could have remains. And I think I found peace after because with the meditation, like making candles, like I have a whole company. It led me into a different direction where I'm at peace. If anybody asked me like, Hey, like this was super cool. I, I like, I'm a big fan of yours. It was awesome to do some things. I'm very selective. I have to have like, kind of like,

some type of feel like, okay, I could connect to it. Because other than that, it's like, you know, things that you saw and it was like, bring my boys back. Do you really want to see girls either in the late forties or early fifties fist fighting? Yeah. Come on. It's like grandma's a cop. Stop. Just slow it down. Like,

Like, what could we really fight about to make sure, hey, we're not getting Social Security in a couple of years? Like, it's ridiculous. But these bitches will fight, but it's ugly. It's not realistic. It's like, when do you stop? And everybody on the place, like, you know, on this whole thing, if they want to talk about it, not everybody has an ailment. Well, one of these bitches have something going on. Right. So is it really normal to really... So everyone's like, I think sometimes things...

They're done. Like, just let them to rest. Let sleeping dogs lie. Like, you know, every time they do have to do a remake of this movie, just sometimes it's best keep it original. Yeah. So, you know, we appreciate the fans. Like, hey, could it come back? If certain things would go, people probably would want to make it back. But what are you making it back for? You loved it because of the fighting. Right. Gotta ask yourself, America, you really want to see old people fighting? Like, I don't know. You know what I mean? Clip that, Jason. Yeah.

So what can we expect from you? Like you spoke about a book or... A book will definitely be coming in. Like I said, it's all about timing. I can't control what God has, you know, for people to live by. Well, shout out your company and stuff like that. I do have a spiritual line, Spiritual Slinger. I make intention candles. I have fun just like, you know,

Going on social media people so I do have a lot of nice fans and they're so appreciative of you know me just even like Sometimes I'll do a charity and stuff like that and that really like touches me like you want me to be a part of it Of course, I will because every we don't help each other who's gonna help you Yeah, we're all we got people this universe is one time around the ship and you don't want to be in you know The water sink and you want to be on the boat where we all could survive and people are very very

slow and mean to help like if you want someone to help it's like slow motion if I feel something is a real good cause I'm on it you give me a real good go fund I'm down for it you know I'm saying so I'm always still active on my pages I am more in love with just watching TikTok because you people are incredible like you like you but other people like oh yeah no they're great

Like there's people that you don't even know. I don't even know about. And they have like 200 million. My daughter's like, you don't know this guy. Or how about the lady? She's eating the foods and she's the sounds of the emoji. Like wild shit. No, it's crazy. There are so many nooks and crannies of TikTok that I can't even fathom them. And that was one of the reasons why they wanted to take it down because it goes in every area. It goes in hell. It's universal. It goes in every area.

it goes in every and then you're like shit they're learning this shit in China I'll be scrolling and there'll be people in like the Middle East somewhere sleeping in sleeping bags and fucking another thing is like a bunch of like Indians with face paint and like tribal stuff and like doing a freaking rain dance and you're like wow is this real like you only read about this in your mystery books it's wild no it's crazy so I'm like I

I like some, I'm like, because my friend's like, you have to do more and people love you. I'm like, I'm like so amazed. I'm like, nah, I'm like scrolling through this shit. Like I can't compete with this. This is wild. Yeah, but you just being you, I told Karen that too. I was like, you guys have to get on TikTok because you guys do have such a cult. I am, but not to like, like I said, I do do it, right? But I know you like, you're like, you have it like.

It's a business. It's a business. And that's what I'm like, because people don't realize you have to be a talent. You have to have perfect editing and you have to have content. And that's why like my hats, I totally tip them for everyone because I'm like this one girl, like she could cook. And I'm like, but then you have to get with the right person to edit. And I'm like, it's wild. Yeah. It's a fast.

world. Like I like it more than Instagram because it's like not censored. Like they'll give you so much more. Instagram is my lowest platform. I don't even, I only deal with Instagram because I've had it for so long, but like TikTok is my jam. Facebook is my jam. Instagram. I just feel like we're so under the thumb there. You can't do it. I literally got a report yesterday, but see, they don't censor you on Facebook because Instagram and Facebook are the same people.

So they ish, they do, but not as bad as Instagram. Like yesterday I reposted somebody's story about how they like put cayenne pepper in their, in their husband's lube because they caught him cheating. They flagged that and took it for hate speech. And I'm like, how is that hate speech when she's just speaking about, you know, like it's just crazy. And then you're at their mercy because if you get a certain amount of flags, they'll take your account and then you can't like, and I'm,

My account's been taken twice before. Imagine it's not by a hacker. It's by the actual company. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. Ramona, it's been so nice just sitting here. I feel like I could talk to you forever. Well, I probably could tell you more about your life than you know, you know, because I can't.

I'm a bunny stalker. Like, I just love the shit out of her. I love you. It's amazing. Like the whole, the whole thing and how you sat there and you just like make the whole family work. And that was another thing too. Like I have a stepdaughter that I took when she was 13 and that was really hard. Wow.

And, you know, she became very successful. She became a lawyer. Her mom told her, she said, if you wanted to go to Disney World, the girl, her mom is very religious and she wanted to join basketball. She wasn't allowed to wear shorts. She wanted to do this. I said, can I take her? Now, mind you, fresh with a little baby. I'm 26 years old. I have a little baby. She's 13. So there's only 13 years apart from my stepdaughter. She's like, can I take her to Disney? Ramona, if you take her, you keep her.

If I take her to Disney, I got to keep her. So I kept her. So I started my marriage with a little baby and a 13 year old. That was a shit show because it was like kind of breaking her out of the curses that, you know, she stepped into with her mom. And one of the things was bringing that trauma into the house. And then, um,

you know what she would get away with her mom you know being sick all the time and not going to school then we had a cutting episode it was a lot it was a lot that went on but again I knock on wood because I always tell her and not like trying to gloat but I'll be like I'm one of the reasons why you became a lawyer and I don't think she become a lawyer she worked yeah for ACS which is for children's advocating for children's had then had a top position with the courts right under the judge now went back

to ACS to help kids again. So to me, like I was put there to help her. You were her advocate so now she's advocating. Yes. The kid had no outlet. Her mother was one way or the highway. And like, you know, and at the end it's like now she's going through her own type of trauma and again, she was a kid that went through therapy and I

I knew she was working it. But again, she had to do what she needed to do. Now, does she need therapy? Because she's going through her own divorce. I don't push her. I make her do what she needs to do because I feel like if you push it, that's why I said you have to be ready for therapy. Oh yeah, absolutely. And you have to be very selective who you pick. And therapy's not for everybody. Because also too, he could be half a kook.

Yeah. You got to make sure that you get the right people. Like it's sad to say you have to do your homework. Some of the craziest humans become psychiatrists. And then also too, it's like, what makes you better to tell me about me? Like not even being defensive. Like people don't really realize if they were in your shoes, what they would do. Yeah. No, it's accurate. You know what I mean? Like for me, they're like, well, you really were going to get married to a man in jail at that time. I was, and we were going to have it like kind of televised in a way.

because at that moment I was in true love and it was meant to be like we did the whole thing on the show like we went to go see the catering hall and all the but certain things real life took place between him and I and I didn't do the show the next season so it never happened but like people always want to look like you like you got 10 heads but you wouldn't even know how to operate these heads if you're in this body couldn't walk a mile in the shoes yeah

Ramona, why don't you tell people where they can find you online? Ramona Rizzo on Instagram. The real Ramona Rizzo on TikTok. And that's about it.

thank you so much for coming on today your story is amazing and I just hope that everybody in this series that everybody can see that you guys are like real women behind the drama and that you know everybody loved Mob Wives and I thought that was cool but I'm I'm really hoping that everybody takes away little bits and pieces of you guys's stories and just falls in love with you even more yeah just follow the you know if you want to be fashionable think of his aesthetic but trust me nobody wants the Mob Wife life

It's nothing but a box of tissues and a lot of prison visits and heartache. Nobody wants it. And a lot of wasted money because the money that you made, you got to give it back to lawyers and you lose. Nothing is more precious than time.

You know, nothing. So people like, I want to be with a gangster. No, you don't. It's a waste. It's a waste of a life. Absolutely. Yeah. I couldn't agree. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I appreciate you. Love coming. You're going to have to come back and visit me when you write that book. Sure. I will. All right. I'll get it to your girlfriend. All right. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Dumb Blonde. I will see you guys next week. Bye.

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