Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again (8 page)

She excels at everything she does. She has always gotten top grades at school and
loves
playing soccer. She lives and breathes it and plays on a club team. Growing up, I always thought soccer was for boys, but now I love the sport. Seeing how passionate Gabriella is about the game makes me love it even more.

When I was at Danbury, Gabriella also helped me with the younger girls, which made me cry. I was so grateful for how she and all the girls stepped up when I was gone. She would wake up Milania and Audriana each morning and help get them ready for school, like I used to do.

I like to call Milania “my spicy one.” If you’ve ever seen her on the show, you know why. She definitely steals the spotlight and loves to ham it up when she is on camera. She’s come out with some doozies over the years on the show. I mean, this is the girl who once said on the show, “I love being a diva!”

When she was four, they were filming us getting our hair done together. She kept telling the guy doing her hair that it hurt. Finally she yelled, “I want the jerk out!”

Here are some of Milania’s best:

“You’re not a cooker, you’re a hooker!”
said to Gia. (She says she
still
doesn’t know what the word “hooker” means and doesn’t understand why everyone laughs at that line . . .)

“You better not come up here, you stupid little mouse!”
said to a mouse trying to climb up a slide she was on.

“Oh my God . . . holy! Look how strong you are! You’re like a dragon!”
said to Joe . . .

But then there was:
“You’re a big poop!”
also said to poor Joe . . .

Some of the things she says really shock me, which you have probably seen by the look on my face. But other things are just so funny, it’s really hard not to laugh. Joe and I don’t want to egg her on, but when she said, “I’m into older men,” it was really hard not to burst out laughing.

Milania has been like this from the get-go. She needs
a lot
of attention and I always give it to her. Anytime there’s yelling or drama going on in the house, Milania is almost always involved. She used to love walking around my bedroom in my bras and high heels. She always gave me
agita
, an Italian-American term for angst, when she slid down the banister in our foyer.

What people don’t know about Milania is that she is always worried about everyone else. When she knows someone is sad or upset about something, she’s the first one to ask, “Are you OK?” Whenever I came down with a cold or a headache, Milania would come in and ask me how I was feeling, get me a glass of water and medicine, and lie down with me to keep me company, stroking my hair to make me feel better. If one of her sisters was upset because a playdate got canceled, she would offer to play with them so they wouldn’t feel lonely. Milania is like me. Whenever someone in my family or one of my friends is having a hard time, I am texting them or on the phone with them every day, asking what they need and checking up on them to make sure they are OK.

Then of course, there’s my baby, Audriana, who is the sweetest, most precious little girl. All I want to do to her is hug and squeeze her so tight. When Audriana came to see me at Danbury, we would play tic-tac-toe and she always let me win. What little girl lets you win? She wanted me to be happy. Once, Milania fell off a ladder in the garage when she was trying to get our Halloween decorations down off a shelf, and Audriana rushed to her side to make sure her sister was OK. I love her for that.

I told Audriana I had to go away to work on my book. Of course I am going to tell her the truth when she gets older and can understand what happened.

Saying goodbye to my girls after they had visited me in prison ripped my heart out of my chest. Seeing them so upset? I know this may sound dramatic, but I would rather have had someone cut both my arms off instead.

I have to say, while I was working on this book, I couldn’t help but cry when I wrote about my daughters. They are my everything. The ones who kept me going through one of the hardest times of my life. I will always be thankful to them for that and for growing up to be such lovely girls and young women. God bless you, my babies. I’m so proud of you and I love, love, love, love you so much.

B
y 2007, life was good. More than good. We were really happy. Joe and I were redoing the Montville house, which we were excited about. I was busy taking care of Gia, Gabriella, and Milania, who were six, three, and almost two at the time.

Joe and I kept busy with friends and family, inviting them over or going to their houses. In the summer, we went to our house on the Jersey shore as much as we could—just the five of us or with good friends and family, including our parents, Joe’s sister and brother and their families, Joey and Melissa, my cousin Kathy, her husband Richie and their kids. We loved taking everyone out on the boat we had at the time, spending the day out on the water. We were so lucky to have such carefree, amazing, fun summers.

I had a big group of girlfriends I hung out with, including Dina Manzo, who I had been friends with for a long time. We had met years ago through our mutual friend, Jackie, and clicked. She felt like the sister I never had because she understood me so well. She could tell by the sound of my voice whether I was on cloud nine or frustrated beyond belief. We were always very close. I met Jacqueline Laurita through Dina, when I ran into the pair of them at a food market in 2002. Jacqueline is married to Dina’s brother, Chris Laurita. She had just moved to Jersey from Las Vegas and was pregnant with her first child with Chris, their son, CJ (she also has a daughter, Ashley Holmes, from her first marriage and later on, had another son, Nicholas, with Chris).

I didn’t see Jacqueline again for a while, until I ran into her at a Christmas party at Dina’s older sister, Caroline Manzo’s house a few years later. We totally connected and felt like we had known each other forever. She was the first one to pop a bottle of champagne, grab my hand, and yank me onto the dance floor. We would always laugh our heads off over something silly—and called each other Lucy and Ethel. Jacqueline, Dina, and I were inseparable. We hung out at each other’s houses or would go out to dinner or for drinks with the girls or with our husbands. At the time, I truly loved Jacqueline like a sister, like Dina.

That same year, a production company called Sirens Media was scouting locations and casting for a new Bravo show that was initially called
Jersey Moms
. Bravo had hit the jackpot in 2006 when it premiered a similar show,
The Real Housewives of Orange County
, about the day-to-day lives of five gorgeous women in Southern California who lived lavishly.

Following the success of Orange County, Bravo immediately created two other
Real Housewives
series (because who wouldn’t?): one set in New York and the other in Atlanta. It goes without saying that these two locales pulled incredible ratings also—and the rest is history.

Now they were looking to shoot their newest show in Franklin Lakes, an upscale Jersey town, which, like the other locations in the series, was the perfect setting. Like the women on the other shows, the ladies in Franklin Lakes lived in unbelievable houses, drove Range Rovers and Mercedes, loved to shop, and of course, looked good at all times.

While the producers were looking for cast members for the new show, they stopped by the Chateau Salon in Franklin Lakes, where
everyone
got their hair done. They asked the Chateau’s owner, Victor Castro, if he could recommend any clients with over-the-top lifestyles—complete with the big house, the fancy cars, the bling, and the clothes—and who were interesting, glamorous, and gorgeous.

Jacqueline and Dina were among those who immediately came to Victor’s mind, and so he recommended them. Predictably, Jacqueline loved the idea and said she wanted to do it. She always said her life was an open book. At first, Dina was on the fence about life in the limelight, but eventually she agreed to do the show. She told me she wanted to do it to get exposure for Project Ladybug, a nonprofit she founded to help children with life-threatening medical issues. Dina’s like that—openhearted and open-minded. I think it was the combination of the two, and the thought that she’d be able to help even more families and children, that really convinced her to do the show.

Jacqueline told Dina about another regular at the salon, Danielle Staub, who she thought might be good for the show, too. I think Dina said something like, “Let’s get to know her first.” But Jacqueline went ahead and told the producers about her. They interviewed Danielle, who was newly divorced, and thought she would fit in well with the show they had in mind.

When another friend of Jacqueline’s turned down an offer to do the show, she and Dina recommended Dina’s sister, Caroline. (Caroline and Dina married two brothers, Al and Tommy Manzo—now Dina’s ex-husband—who own the Brownstone, the catering hall that was the setting for many a blowup.)

Dina also told the producers about me. They called and asked if they could come speak to me. I was shocked, to say the least. Since I was so busy raising three little ones, I never watched much TV and didn’t really know what a reality show was. The world of reality TV as we know it today was just starting to rev up, so I didn’t have much to use as a reference. I never read the tabloids or celebrity magazines because I was always so busy being a mom (and because my parents never had them lying around the house when I was growing up), so I didn’t know if they even wrote about reality TV stars. That didn’t even cross my mind. I didn’t watch any of the
Real Housewives
shows, either—just the Disney Channel with the girls, or the History Channel with Joe.

Even after speaking to the producers, I wondered if it was a scam. I remember thinking,
Why would anyone want to do a show about regular wives and moms like us and document our day-to-day lives?
Even though my fantasy was to become a movie star when I was little, I was now a mom with three young daughters, so becoming a star was no longer on my radar and not part of my decision-making process at all. But Jacqueline was going on and on about it and kept saying it would be fun for us to do, so I thought I would at least listen to what they had to say.

When the producers came to see me, I was still skeptical. We talked outside of our house in Montville, which was under construction. I introduced them to my three girls and answered their questions about what my life was like. Joe was busy working on the house, so he said hi and that was it. The producers told me they loved me and wanted me to be on the show just from that initial meeting. They sent me a contract, but I still wasn’t sure about this. My friends and family didn’t know much about being on a TV show, either, but told me to think about it carefully. So for me, this was stepping into the unknown.

It took eleven months for me to agree to do it. The producers would call me regularly to check in, saying how perfect I would be for the show. I took so long to decide because I really wasn’t sure about what I would be getting myself into. I asked Joe about it. He said, “It’s up to you, honey. I will support you in your decision, but I really don’t want to be on TV. You can be on there with your friends.” Of course, he did end up being involved with the show, but at the time we didn’t think that would happen.

Toward the end of those eleven months, I met Jacqueline for lunch at this Chinese place we liked in Franklin Lakes. She and all the other ladies had signed their contracts long before. She brought a blank contract—a contract meant for me—and said, “Are you going to sign it, already? If you’re not going to do the show, then I’m not going to do it either.”

She was like, “Come on, do it with us.”

Maybe it was peer pressure or maybe I was feeling spontaneous, but I bit the bullet and signed the contract right then and there—without a lawyer to look it over. Jacqueline took it and immediately mailed it, so I couldn’t back out.

In the end, I said yes because I figured it would be fun. They were just going to follow us around and film what we did every day: going out for lunch or dinner together, or just hanging out with each other and our families. Honestly, what went through my mind was the amazing memories we’d have—I pictured it being a televised home video of my daughters.

I definitely didn’t do the show for the money or the glamour. I didn’t get paid much for the first season, and for the most part, we did our own hair and makeup! I remember trying to get ready for a scene and doing my makeup with my daughters right there, Velcroed to my side, as I tried to keep my hand steady to put on lip gloss and liquid eyeliner. They were asking me questions right and left, trying on my blush and mascara, and running around with the energy only kids have.

I ended up spending that season’s salary on show-related expenses including pricey dresses, shoes, and handbags for the various parties and events. I had to put aside money for taxes, so in the end, I didn’t make anything that season. But again, I was just doing it for fun. I remember thinking,
What possible harm could it bring?
I truly had no idea that being in the limelight meant that everything you did or said would be scrutinized and would bring on a jealousy I had never seen before, from strangers, friends, and family alike. Talk about
malocchio
.

Looking back, it was so easy to just sign a piece of paper. I had no idea it would change my life forever—for good and for bad. I never thought a show about regular moms shopping and just doing their thing would blow up into what it became—or that it would bring so much drama to my family. Or should I say, I never thought my family would come on the show and cause all the drama that they did.

T
he first season centered around Dina, Caroline, Jacqueline, and their families. I was kind of like the fun friend. The sidekick. People always ask me when I was my “most real” on the show, and I always tell them that you saw the real me in the first two seasons. (As the seasons went on, people would say I was mean and vengeful. But it was because of the situations I faced on camera. I’m actually pretty laid-back, low-key, and have had drama-free friendships for decades. No yelling, screaming, accusing, backstabbing . . . just normal. But that’s not always what you saw on the show.)