TBT: RaMona Rizzo

Throwback Thursday The Mob Wives March continues with the beautiful and feisty RaMona Rizzo, who sets the record straight about her legendary grandfather, Lefty Guns Ruggerio. RaMona talks about discovering the truth of her grandfather's life through Joe Pistone's book and confronting the differences between reality and Hollywood's portrayal in Donnie Brasco as well. She shares her story of meeting Al Pacino on set and how she's learned to rise above other family secrets, drama, and betrayal. RaMona gets into her path to Mob Wives and her excitement for her company, Spiritual Slinger. RaMona; IG https://www.instagram.com/ramonarizzo/?hl=en | Spiritual Slinger https://www.instagram.com/spiritualslinger/ Watch Full Episodes & More: www.dumbblondeunrated.com http://www.dumbblondeunrated.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bunnie XO?

  What's up, guys? Don't forget to sub to Patreon so that you can see the visuals, because not only do we have episodes of the podcast, we have exclusive content that nobody else sees on any other apps, behind the scenes, photo shoots, and we're dropping a whole bunch of surprising stuff this year. So if you guys don't want to miss out and you want to be the first to know, go over to our Patreon, www.dumbblondeunrated.com. Love ya. Is this thing on?

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Bonnie, who used to be a former sex worker and now hosts the podcast Dumb Blonde.

• 0:32Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 0:42Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Some degree.

• 0:54Bunnie XO?

  Ms. Ramona Rizzo, how you doing, baby?

• 0:56Speaker 02

  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 gonna give you your flowers. You know, I'm not like a little groupie, like a fangroupie, but the things that I've said about Bonnie 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.

• 1:28Bunnie XO?

  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 trumps 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, um, you know, one of the other mob wives, um, who you are very close with. That is your cousin, right?

• 1:56Speaker 02

  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.

• 2:04Bunnie XO?

  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 pretty crazy. I felt so bad for you watching some things and we're gonna get into it, but who was your grandfather?

• 2:38Speaker 02

  My grandfather was Lefty Guns Ruggerio and the movie Donnie Brasco was based on him, basically.

• 2:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, so let's go back to that. So where did you grow up?

• 2:47Speaker 02

  I was born in the Lower East Side in Manhattan. And that's where the show, like, I think the show, the movie was featured there.

• 2:54Bunnie XO?

  Right. And he, so Lefty Guns was a part of the Bonanno Crime.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Look at you, you're Italian.

• 3:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Listen, I did some research, okay?

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Saying you properly.

• 3:05Bunnie XO?

  I'm telling you. So he was part of the Bonanno Crime fam- family and you were the first granddaughter.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:12Bunnie XO?

  Did, growing up, what was your relationship with your grandfather like?

• 3:15Speaker 02

  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.

• 3:51Bunnie XO?

  I love that. Anytime I hear you talk about your grandfather, it's always like the sweetest memories.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  That's what I knew.

• 3:57Bunnie XO?

  Like, what an, what an honor, though, to him to have a granddaughter who just like had him on a pedestal.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Well, according to the, if 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. 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.

• 4:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  It wasn't like how say Charles Manson got innocent people or, you know, the serial killers. Like, people wanna just sit there and say murderer, murderer. He was alleged. He never got convicted of that. You know, they said whatever they said the number. It's quite high, but was it true? Don't know. Not my business to know.

• 4:41Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  And I'll never have proof if it was.

• 4:43Bunnie XO?

  Right. And I think that's actually a profound point is because, you know, 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 like doted on you. And anytime you talk about him, I always hear about like the great memories that you guys had. Um, growing up, when did you start realizing that there was something different about your family? Because I heard you state in an interview that you, it was a very secretive family.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Till they say 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 wanna know?

• 5:23Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  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.

• 5:31Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Because I always had a father.

• 5:33Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  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.

• 5:40Bunnie XO?

  Mm.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  So, you know, if I was born in this time, they would never have a chance to keep up any secrets.

• 5:45Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  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?

• 5:53Bunnie XO?

  I remember things when I was five.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  But I had to do with the Holy Time of Communion. My grandfather's body language changed differently so much that day. It was, 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 timeframe, like, words were being shared and, you know, things were different.

• 6:24Bunnie XO?

  Kind of paint a picture for the, the people at home. Um, about, you know, what happened with your grandfather. So there was an undercover agent named Joe.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Pistone.

• 6:36Bunnie XO?

  Pistone.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Joe Pistone.

• 6:37Bunnie XO?

  Um, who entered infiltrated the mob as Donnie Brasco.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:42Bunnie XO?

  Can you tell us that story and take us on that journey?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  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.

• 6:58Bunnie XO?

  Whose book?

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Joe Pistone wrote a book.

• 7:00Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  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. Cause 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 Kettering Hospital. So it was totally different.

• 7:19Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  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 Pistone 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. Cause supposedly there was going to be a hit on my grandfather.

• 7:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  So they, they closed down the whole operation.

• 7:45Bunnie XO?

  Let's, let's, let's rewind it back and start from the beginning. So your grandfather allegedly had a gambling problem, correct?

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Thousand percent gambling and women. Give it up to you, Blondie.

• 7:56Bunnie XO?

  My kind of guy. I'm from Vegas. Um, so he, you know, had a gambling problem. And he was kind, this is me just, you know, all the research that I didn't, correct me if I'm wrong, but I, I want you to tell the story also. So he kind of had a gambling problem and enter Joe Pistone, AKA Donnie Brasco. 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?

• 8:26Speaker 02

  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 already with somebody's cooperating. What are they gonna tell you? So now we need to move on to the next one. So the guy introduced 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.

• 8:57Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  And to live.

• 8:58Bunnie XO?

  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. Um, he came, he became a made man, though, after working with Pistone. And then, um,

• 9:17Bunnie XO?

  after, you know, him and Pistone had a pretty, because 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. He, he became best friends with Joe Pistone.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  He was his best man at the wedding. Because 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.

• 9:47Bunnie XO?

  No, in, in reality, they were, they were shading her, though.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:52Bunnie XO?

  They were being petty and shading her.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  But they would never say anything, like, you know, through whatever took place, so many secrets came out, like through this movie, through the book, through him going to jail, like, they waited till after he died. So it was like, damn, like.

• 10:07Bunnie XO?

  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. Um, 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?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  To that, whatever went on with them with that, I'm not a hundred percent sure. All I know was that something had taken place and that they said that they were gonna put, there was a contract out of my grandfather, not from, not about, like the mob was gonna kill him for something. Before they even knew, I guess maybe that's when they found out Brasco was an informant.

• 10:49Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Something happened with the book.

• 10:51Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  I mean, with a boat.

• 10:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  And they said, they put two and two together.

• 10:54Bunnie XO?

  They had said that there was like a yacht party and it made the news. And that's how they start, your grandfather started questioning Pstone.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  And this'll 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 star, 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 wanna ask me? You could ask me whatever. I took a deep breath and I said, no, you're my grandfather. I don't wanna. 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.

• 11:31Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  So I had the chance to like, see how you're asking me all these questions? Some of them I do and don't, don't know because I could've asked him anything. He would've told me whatever. I didn't care.

• 11:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  I 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.

• 11:47Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  If we're married perhaps.

• 11:50Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  But there's some things, yeah. It's like a level of respect and I didn't need to know it. So as far as that, I think what took place was there, they found out Donnie Brasco was an agent. Then they were gonna put a hit out on my grandfather. They took him right off the street, arrested him, 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.

• 12:12Bunnie XO?

  And during this entire time, your family is still lying to you.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Thousand percent.

• 12:16Bunnie XO?

  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, the... The um, 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.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Well, yes, but let's talk about the word anxiety. I don't think that word was used back then. This is, this is a word of now. This is a word in the past couple of years. It wasn't big growing up. It wasn't big if a parent had a problem, maybe they should be on bipolar medicine. There wasn't a problem, like, let's be honest with our kids. Everything was very hush. So for me, that had to be anxiety. I couldn't come and tell my parents, this is what I knew. 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 with 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

• 13:24Speaker 02

  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.

• 13:46Bunnie XO?

  But at such a young age to do.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  I had no outlet. You know, Karen would tell you, she'd be like, you know, this all makes sense because after she watched the special that I did and I discussed that. She goes, this makes sense why you were always all the time in the room by yourself. Like they would 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 my own therapist in a way, and also like my best friend. Like, you know, when somebody has a 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.

• 14:20Bunnie XO?

  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 you, some letters got intercepted.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  My mother and I, we have the same name.

• 14:34Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Same first name, they, but they call her Mona instead of Ramona, but the letters, he would never call her Mona, he would always write to her Ramona. She gave me her, her letter. I said, ho, ho, ho. This is it. This is, this is like the jackpot. I'm gonna finally get, you know, time to express what's going on. I read her letter. I said, this is, I'm gonna 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.

• 14:58Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  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.

• 15:05Bunnie XO?

  Alright.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  So now I'm like,

• 15:08Speaker 02

  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,

• 15:32Bunnie XO?

  To get answers.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  But let the cat out of the bag.

• 15:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  And, you know, I could have been, again, why, what happened? Just wanna say him, we don't have to talk about all that because I didn't wanna hear it because I was so tired at that point being lied to. And I didn't know if I could trust what was gonna 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. Let's go visit.

• 16:02Bunnie XO?

  They had taken him after your communion.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  A little bit after, yeah.

• 16:05Bunnie XO?

  Is that, is that when we, we had circled away from that, but so you, at your communion, you could tell that your grandfather's body language was off and?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  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 me. My parents like, he's in Florida.

• 16:24Bunnie XO?

  And so between that time and the time that you got that letter, your parents were lying to you the entire time.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Not even the parents, the whole family. It wasn't just my mother and 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.

• 16:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's gotta be so painful and traumatizing as a child to know that you, that they pretty much initially gaslit you. Your whole childhood and that's traumatic as fuck.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  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.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  And I tried to do whatever I could do to like, I played a 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 a feel, like if you had to put them in front of me, I could remember the type of corduroys they were. 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 type of sterile smell.

• 17:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  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.

• 17:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  And a lot of people don't know is like, he was in MDC, which is the lower part of Manhattan. So now I could officially say where he is. So we went from not seeing, you know, not knowing where he was. Till 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, look, 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.

• 18:12Bunnie XO?

  What was that like, that first meeting, seeing your grandfather? What kind of emotions was that?

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Um, different, uh, 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, you know, 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.

• 18:35Bunnie XO?

  Supervised.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  On rules, but in the rules that he had to tell me where, you know.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  This is gonna 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 in 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, 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 with Coke, that's what I remember, Coca-Cola being spilled.

• 19:22Bunnie XO?

  That is so wild that your parent, that your family would let you go visit your father in jail.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  I wasn't gonna remember. Who thought I would remember, Bunny?

• 19:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  I was little.

• 19:32Bunnie XO?

  And then?

• 19:32Speaker 02

  He was, oh, we were in college. I went to go visit my father in college. So at that age, 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.

• 19:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  But I still remember.

• 19:47Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Still like, you know, you see the pictures.

• 19:49Bunnie XO?

  They, they took you to jail, but they said he was in college?

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:52Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  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'll be like, where's, where's our father? Oh, he's in college.

• 20:02Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  He's away. He's in school. Nobody like.

• 20:06Bunnie XO?

  Was your dad in the lifestyle also? Gotcha.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:10Bunnie XO?

  I can tell it's hard for you to talk about it, you know?

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and 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.

• 20:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 20:31Bunnie XO?

  Is he still in prison or is he out?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no. My father is 100% legit. He's.

• 20:37Bunnie XO?

  Why don't you guys talk anymore?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Oh, because I married someone out of my nationality that was in, um, 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.

• 21:03Bunnie XO?

  But still, but still love your daughter, even if you don't approve of who I marry.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  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 if I'm not with him.

• 21:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  You know, I just had, I just had, um, a family member pass, my aunt, who was like my second mom. I had to do four days with this man. And, you know, the funeral parlor. I was like a soldier. Just let it roll right off. My, my kids are like, that's him. This is everybody's intimidated from. I go, not me. I go, you? Daughter goes, no. I says, well, just keep rocking. It is what it is. Some, 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. And, um, she deals with a lot of stuff and, but for him, I just don't, I think he's just been a guy that should have dogs.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Cause he's just very good to animals, because animals can't talk back to you.

• 22:06Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Animals are gonna 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. Um, kids are very big on that.

• 22:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  You know, working on something and getting the goal here. Look, I got all this stuff. You said I could 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.

• 22:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  If I get married or not, like, I was very good, but in some degrees, I was a rebel. You know what I mean?

• 22:37Bunnie XO?

  Did that happen after your grandfather passed away? Let's talk about that really quick. You're, so your 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. How long did he stay in prison after that? And did you stay in communication with him?

• 22:56Speaker 02

  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 a 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 gonna talk about now? Like during holidays? 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.

• 23:12Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 23:13Speaker 02

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

• 23:24Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  So it was kind of a double banger. I got to see the two men that I loved, Elvis Presley and my grandfather.

• 23:31Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Because Elvis and my grandfather, the only two men I always put in my heart. I was a fan since the day he died, so I'm not gonna just say my age, but I was five. So, uh, I became in love with Elvis. So I was like, this is a cool trip.

• 23:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  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.

• 23:53Bunnie XO?

  Was he incarcerated in Nashville?

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:56Bunnie XO?

  Oh, wow.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  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 she 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 in, so I was like, what? Where were you? I said, I went to go visit Papa in jail, and they put the cookies up in the air. So this became even more traumatic. So it was like I said, when certain people shouldn't maybe have kids.

• 24:40Bunnie XO?

  Did he not have a good relationship with your grandfather?

• 24:43Speaker 02

  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. Someone 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 gonna say no.

• 25:00Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Work that amount yourselves. Not my problem. It shouldn't have been my problem, but it became my problem. Hmm. And it was horrible. So I remember that. So up until that time, the next time I saw him, again, send major presents. Um, always calling us, getting, you know, people doing sketches of you from, from jail. Like, you know, we always had stuff from him. But I never got to see him till I was in high school. And when I knew when they said he was gonna pass.

• 25:27Bunnie XO?

  So they released him from jail and did they release him because he was so sick? Um, I'm sorry, I have like a little frog in my throat.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  It's the, uh, I like drinking glass bottles. That's the way.

• 25:38Bunnie XO?

  Yes, always.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  It's hard to know.

• 25:40Bunnie XO?

  Do you guys, do you want something to drink?

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Um.

• 25:42Bunnie XO?

  We have one of these for you if you want.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  I'll take one later because I don't want her to bother with my lips. But, um.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  I didn't get to see him till then and 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 of 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 till I was in a teen. So he did the thirteen years in jail. Came home from the.

• 26:30Bunnie XO?

  Did they let him go because he was sick?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Oh, the frig knows. He still, he did his whole time. He did his whole bid.

• 26:35Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  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 thirteen years since the whole time, but thirteen, right?

• 26:45Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  He dies, gets out. He dies thirteen months later. Should have played Lotto, thirteen and thirteen, like crazy shit. And then he died. I was like, look at him. Died on my favorite holidays. Like, there was no way I was ever gonna forget him, but he made sure it was on Thanksgiving.

• 27:01Bunnie XO?

  Oh, grandpa.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's like, kind of like, maybe it was like, you know, to remember, I will never, ever forget him, but that was like, like stamping it more. I was like, wow, this is even crazier. But yeah.

• 27:13Bunnie XO?

  So take me on that journey of your grandfather, the, 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. You're losing him, dealing with the anxiety of pretty much where, bearing the weight of your parents' issues on your shoulders. How old were you when your grandfather passed away?

• 27:39Speaker 02

  It's about twenty-two.

• 27:40Bunnie XO?

  About twenty-two. Take me on this journey. Like, what does Ramona do without her grandfather in her life?

• 27:47Speaker 02

  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 gonna, never gonna say something that people didn't know.

• 27:58Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  So people would have done their home, like, a lot of people do their research.

• 28:01Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  So, one of the things was when I originally said I was gonna go do Mob Wives and I had to go meet an uncle about it, because he had to give me something. My grandmother, who was my father's mother, passed and he's like, "I hope you're not gonna say anything about my father." So who do I go to? I go to the mafia, um, you know, the four-one-one, the, uh, the information book. I said, Karen, who the fuck was my grandfather? 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?

• 28:34Bunnie XO?

  I love how disconnected from it you are, though. Like, Karen is so immersed in it and can tell you-

• 28:38Speaker 02

  We grew up totally different.

• 28:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Her father told her everything.

• 28:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  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, she goes, "He was a sharpshooter. This guy was the..." 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.

• 29:05Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  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 gonna talk about, I don't speak to my dad, so I'm not gonna shine light on that.

• 29:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  I can't help what's gonna come out, if there's anything gonna come out, because he did it to himself. He was a grown man. He put himself in that lifestyle.

• 29:25Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  So my whole situation before my grandfather actually died, I still had another grandfather that was alive, but I wasn't close with. But my family was still, anything that came into our home, if it was about anyone, it was a secret.

• 29:39Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  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, cuz it's like, it's like they had a appointment every week. So there's my father 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 snoring. 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.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  People watch The Sopranos and she goes, what's the mafia? Are we in the mafia? I couldn't ask that at home cuz I was gonna get lied to.

• 30:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  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.

• 30:49Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  So like with Karen's father situation, you know, then it became like, well, I said.

• 30:55Bunnie XO?

  Karen's father is Sammy the Bull.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. So with him, it was like. I'm not gonna turn my back on her, you know, whatever men do, you know, but a lot of people did. A lot of people did.

• 31:06Bunnie XO?

  Which is terrible because a child should never have to pay for the sins of the father. I've, I've never believed that, you know?

• 31:12Speaker 02

  And she paid her own sins and she'll talk about it, it's no secret. She rebelled like a motherfucker. She rebelled hardcore. And it was something-

• 31:19Bunnie XO?

  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 the same thing.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  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.

• 31:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, she told me hers was Gina.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, 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, we had, they, they admitted to her later on that the FBI agents were watching us come off the, come off the roof. We could have been dead. You're watching kids chimney 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, 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, because again, it roots from The Sopranos. It's the 25th anniversary.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Um, that's how like all these women came up and, you know, Soprano, Carmella, she is the number one TV mob wife. You know, because everybody on our show was not a mob wife. It was just what the focus group-

• 32:40Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  It was, you know, going on the tales of all the housewife shows that were, you know, very prominent.

• 32:46Bunnie XO?

  Who was an actual mob wife on the show? Anybody? Was Renee?

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Well, Hector really wasn't a made guy because he was um Puerto Rican.

• 32:54Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Um, and you know, that was very bad situation. That was all real TV, you know what I mean?

• 33:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's a whole fucking.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  That, you know, something like that. So what, you know?

• 33:06Bunnie XO?

  There wasn't really a mob wife on.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  It was just, 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.

• 33:16Bunnie XO?

  While you're on the show, I remember that. So let's, let's circle back. So you move on, you know, you're dealing with all this stuff personally. When does Mob Wives come knocking on your door? How old were you?

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Well, Mob Wives didn't come knocking on my door. Mob Wives, I was out of the country. I had.

• 33:32Bunnie XO?

  Oh, is this where? Okay. So you've met your husband?

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:34Bunnie XO?

  Okay. So let's talk about the husband, the ex-husband.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  The deceased husband.

• 33:38Bunnie XO?

  Is he deceased?

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Recently just passed. So that was a whole other thing I had to deal with.

• 33:42Bunnie XO?

  Wow. Yeah. Can we talk about?

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's fine. So um, I met my ex-husband through one of these people's jobs that my parents placed me in. So you didn't want me around this, but meanwhile, I'm working for people of such demeanor. So it was a mob affiliated job.

• 33:59Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  So I was.

• 34:00Bunnie XO?

  Wasn't Italian, correct?

• 34:02Speaker 02

  He wasn't Italian, but his partners were. His partners was a big guy.

• 34:04Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  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 nine oh two one. That was us. We did the Europe trip. We did the whole nine, but he was a psycho.

• 34:24Bunnie XO?

  Right. And it's always the cute ones.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Really like, like honestly, like the preppy murderer, like he could have those tendencies.

• 34:30Bunnie XO?

  American psycho.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  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 because even though he was Arab, he was um, spent like 20 years in a. 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.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  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 until 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.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  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. So he helped me. I didn't know anything about mortgages. I didn't know anything about co-ops, nothing about that.

• 36:11Bunnie XO?

  Your family wouldn't help you?

• 36:13Speaker 02

  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 certain age, I'm bouncing.

• 36:19Bunnie XO?

  This is your dad?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  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, I'm not into that. Like I was kind, I wasn't a wild child, but there's certain things that I believe that if I were to-

• 36:40Bunnie XO?

  Traditional, like old school way of thinking.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  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?

• 36:50Bunnie XO?

  The movie that we keep referring to is Donnie Brasco, in case, in case you guys-

• 36:54Speaker 02

  They made like my uncle. Um, 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?

• 37:05Bunnie XO?

  Drug of the eighties and nineties.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  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, um, I was still young. I was like, maybe about twelve. 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's like, you can't watch TV. I'm like, what? Old school Italians, they believe when somebody draws, you can't even watch TV, can't have music. I'm like, God, Jesus Christ, like it became really weird.

• 37:43Bunnie XO?

  Why is that? Is that like a respect factor?

• 37:45Speaker 02

  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. 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.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  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 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 gonna kill him, all this bullshit. She caught him many times cheating. It was. The end of it. He remarried.

• 39:08Bunnie XO?

  I love how Hollywood tries to paint jaded women as like villain or the bad people when really, everybody knows if you get fucking cheated on, you're gonna dislike the human who has fucking hurt you.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  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 cheats on them, you'd be like, that mother effa. 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 firm, 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 gonna sue you. She's still alive. They remove her. So now I'm like, this is still not sitting right with me. I gotta do something. I gotta speak up for my grandfather because they waited for him to die. And at the time, it was very rare where you got paid for interviews.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  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.

• 40:45Bunnie XO?

  I've seen it on.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  She breaks down 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 asking everybody in the neighborhood. So I'm having breakfast in the local diner, the whole area. So then finally I wait for him to come outside, like to go into his trailer. I'm like, Mr. Pacino. He like looks at me, who's this girl? Who get like another fan? I was like, I want to talk to you about my grandfather, Lefty Guns Reggio. His mouth dropped. The guy goes one minute, he comes, he goes, he's gonna take you inside. So my sister goes inside again, tough as nails. She starts hysterical crying. I go, what the frig 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.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  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.

• 41:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  So I came prepared with the truth, just in case, because I could have been a stalker liar.

• 41:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, for sure. I love that he was willing to take that meeting with you like that.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  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, they say.

• 41:59Bunnie XO?

  Oh, so he's like a method actor.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  He still continues it going. So honestly, to meeting me, probably would have been like a plus for him. So, and he, 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 gonna take not only your grandfather, what I know about him from the book, but everybody else around him, and I'm gonna 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. Her, that, my great grandmother, my mother, my grandmother always worked in fashion. My mother went to FIT.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  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 to make sure that he knew that he just had it when it came to the family. If there was gonna be a part about that, play that with love. Because regardless, whatever went on with this family, this Costa Noster 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, like it was like my last homage to him. Like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna make sure that my, because I got a mouth when I want to use it,

• 43:28Speaker 02

  is gonna get known, because this is crazy.

• 43:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  And he said to me,

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Everybody around him, this was gonna be, um, 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, I came, I got what I needed. And I was like, thank you. Like I, there was no reason for me to keep it going. Like, I, you know, he was gracious enough.

• 44:02Bunnie XO?

  It was kind of like closure.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Yes, to give me his time.

• 44:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  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 my piece. I said, when it comes to the family, that's all it really was about.

• 44:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  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.

• 44:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  And we didn't make any money. That was Donnie Brasco'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.

• 44:38Bunnie XO?

  It's crazy that Joe was able to make, Joe Pistone was able to make money off of it, but not your grandfather.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  My grandfather didn't want to because it was against his oath. He would never make, my grandfather was very old school.

• 44:50Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  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, 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, 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.

• 45:16Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? But then I'm like, hey, now I know why I get some anger issues, or how I know why maybe I get some backbone. And the best it'll be like, you know, I'll be such a curse. So my mother will be like, don't curse. I'm like, listen, it's in the family genes. Or I've been, maybe I should have just been a dude. Like, I don't know. You know, it's crazy. But again, that's how my whole, 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 all, when the actual movie came out, you know where I was? I was in Jordan. I left the country.

• 45:58Bunnie XO?

  So you met your husband. Last we left off, your husband was helping you get this apartment. Did he help you get that apartment?

• 46:04Speaker 02

  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.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  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.

• 46:57Bunnie XO?

  How did he talk you into leaving the country? Cause that's huge to be able to be like, hey, I'm going to take this Italian princess and move her to Jordan.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  At that time, we were together.

• 47:07Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  And I had left to go get married and I left the country and I got married there.

• 47:12Bunnie XO?

  Without you, your father and you aren't talking at this point, right? Cause he knew you guys were dating.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  But, but, but I got married there, stood there for like a month or two, came home. I got married, a Muslim marriage, so it wasn't, 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 distraught. 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 twenty-four, twenty-five, still young.

• 47:49Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  And um.

• 47:50Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's a baby.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  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.

• 47:58Bunnie XO?

  So

• 47:58Speaker 02

  We had four kids.

• 47:59Bunnie XO?

  Take, 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?

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Well, you could read between the lines. We had a very good marriage. Everything was fine.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  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 winds 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

• 48:39Speaker 02

  everybody ain't gonna live forever. So once certain people are where they belong, possibly in hell, then I'll put my book out.

• 48:45Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  And but what I could say is that um I wanted to go into Jordan.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  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, to see your dad, see your, 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 I, my husband told me that I'm going to Mexico. Like, things were getting weird in the house, weird in a sense where he, he was acting different. So I, I already knew the 411. I knew what was coming. Now, remember, if, if you sit back and I told you how I got the job, I got the job through

• 49:36Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  people.

• 49:36Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  So now certain things were just crumbling down.

• 49:40Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Now I'm dealing with this again.

• 49:51Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  But now I'm responsible for lives, for kids.

• 49:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  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.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  And I would have handled it a different way, but he wasn't built like that. And he had, he had the right connects from the Middle East to handle it. That's all I'm gonna say.

• 50:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  And um, 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, 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.

• 50:49Bunnie XO?

  How many kids did you have at this time?

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Four.

• 50:51Bunnie XO?

  Oh, so you, you had.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  I had one, there wasn't even one.

• 50:54Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  My age is kids, kids. Right now, I have a twenty five, a twenty four, twenty three, and a nineteen.

• 51:00Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  I was busy, girl. It was TV.

• 51:04Bunnie XO?

  You guys were making babies.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  There 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 gonna have two kids because I had, I had a great marriage. I had a great home. Everything was fine. Whatever God was gonna bless us with was gonna bless us with. I'm not gonna 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. He listen, it's already predicted what's gonna happen to you. So imagine even doing this with another kid. It was hard enough.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Traveling over there. So I said, you know what? I'm not gonna let the abandonment, my kids had the separation. I'm gonna take them over there. I'm still gonna get a divorce because I have to end this because I have to become a mother first.

• 51:59Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  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, loved the country, loved the people, loved 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 years, almost four years, three and a half years.

• 52:24Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 52:32Speaker 02

  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? Sometimes, 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. I 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 bleeding, bleeding, but she remembers when her and her dad and myself had a pretty big altercation that we went to like,

• 53:17Speaker 02

  kind of like a shelter, like they compared 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, went to another country. That was the last time that uh, 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.

• 53:46Bunnie XO?

  What was it, an abusive?

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Only, again, it was a thin line between love and hate. There were certain things there he couldn't, he couldn't take that I, nobody ever thought that women with four kids were gonna get up and get the fuck out of there in general, or just leave in general.

• 53:59Bunnie XO?

  You strike me as that person.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  I think back and I'm like, fuck. Cause a lot of people you hear, even in America, they stay because it's economically right. They stay because they don't want to um, have that responsibility by themselves. I was like, fuck this shit. I gotta just do it because I had to be a parent first. Did I love the life that he provided? Hell yeah. 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 wanna raise my kids like um.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  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.

• 55:10Bunnie XO?

  So you ended up going back home with the four babies.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  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 stood still still stood in the Middle East because my kids had the best education. They had amazing education. Um, if you lived there, middle class, you were very rich. The homes are 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, something like that. They think that because you know, it was a time after nine eleven.

• 55:48Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  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 arm in me where like, well, this could happen to you or. One time we had, you know, when I was there, I said. I'm gonna be with you. Like I tried it, but then like, you know, money I was like, I felt, I felt like I was in that harms way, like with my grandfather. I felt like the bottom was gonna.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  I couldn't trust anymore.

• 56:34Bunnie XO?

  You didn't feel safe.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  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 because I'm much mature and I'm older. But. 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, swearing 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.

• 57:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  And I hope.

• 57:05Bunnie XO?

  Want them to go through what you had to go through.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  And in a, in a degree.

• 57:08Bunnie XO?

  You're trying to break generational trauma.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  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.

• 57:30Bunnie XO?

  Did he just step away from the kids after you moved back?

• 57:33Speaker 02

  But he was here. I mean, I was here. He was there. Cause that was a whole other issue. It wasn't like now anybody could come back over the border. There was a lot of shit.

• 57:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Because he came from a country that he lived in Jordan, but he was originally from another country that's not recognized.

• 57:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  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.

• 57:56Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Paid millions at all of the taxes, but was never a citizen. It was like some fucked up shit.

• 57:59Bunnie XO?

  No, that's, sounds like the fucking government.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  You know, it is what it is. It wasn't like now, like you could, you know, walk over and you, nobody's gonna bother you. It was different then. Like, you know, one time with the, uh, the, um, 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 R Us, that this is a real marriage.

• 58:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  Then they really need to go get a better job. And I took my time and I went there for the interview. And he was on, he was on the cusp of getting his, um, 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.

• 58:48Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Up in the air. He had no choice. Who's left holding the bag? The trophy wife. So who if they can't get him, they're coming for me.

• 58:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  So it was it was it was basically it's it's a lifetime movie. It's like the mob meets Not Without My Daughter meets some corporate like white collar shit. And at the end of it, everybody's like.

• 59:08Bunnie XO?

  And you tried your hardest to get away from it.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  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 when they did Mob Wives.

• 59:21Bunnie XO?

  And they they came knocking on your door when you were in Jordan.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  No. 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. 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, um, in a sense, a newbie of being back, officially moved back.

• 59:49Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Um, some of the girls, like I said, you know, Renee's family did holidays with them, whatnot. 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 Toys R Us credit card. Like, everything was fucked up from top to bottom. You know, I was left like, because 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, uh, the government to make sure I wasn't, like, when he saw the case, he's, I'm like, listen, I had nothing to do with it.

• 1:00:36Bunnie XO?

  Charges brought up on you because of your husband?

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Brought up on me. They were trying to come up with something because of my husband. So when I finally got one of 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 mob. 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 if we'll take the wife down. But there was nothing to take me down for.

• 1:01:15Bunnie XO?

  Goodness. They'll they'll go to any lengths.

• 1:01:17Speaker 02

  Any lengths. Yeah. So after a while, I was like.

• 1:01:19Bunnie XO?

  I thought women and children were off limits.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Not to not to the feds.

• 1:01:23Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  I mean, I got, please, I got hit with so many different things that were just so unethical. 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 gonna 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 thirty thousand square foot in Atlanta. Never got to live in.

• 1:01:50Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  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 was very, but it's still now it's somebody

• 1:01:59Bunnie XO?

  It's humbling. Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  Somebody else's rules.

• 1:02:02Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Somebody else's way of, you know,

• 1:02:04Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  Authority in the home. So that was the biggest punishment I felt from my divorce. If you had to say like, hey, um, Ramona, uh, this is what was worse, losing money or that that because it also brought me back to a place where I didn't wanna. 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's not the same color, somebody's not the same nationality, I'm gonna be like, listen, it's not gonna be easy, but if that's what you wanna do, I'm here for you.

• 1:02:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  And my family, oh, hell no, you'll be disowned. You won't be, you know what I mean? If like, if say if you were to marry.

• 1:02:49Bunnie XO?

  How how far has that gotten them? You know, like, being secretive.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  Old school.

• 1:02:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, it just doesn't help in any way.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  It's the law of their way.

• 1:02:56Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  You know, Karen has an interracial baby that would have never flew in my home. Never, ever, ever.

• 1:03:01Bunnie XO?

  Do they consider your kids interracial? Because.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  That was like the weirdest thing. It's like so weird because even when I came back home and I was talking to all my Latin friends, they're like, you're white. I'm like, but what the fuck are you? Like, I never saw my friends that are Latin, not white.

• 1:03:14Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:03:22Bunnie XO?

  The good old South.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Loved the South. I really did. I loved it. If I could have been lived there forever and not have any of this happen, Ramona, you wanna be on TV or you wanna live happily in Atlanta? Oh, honey, I'll take that any day.

• 1:03:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  How I saw the racism was that. Um, I was like, listen, there was nobody gonna 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 the shit. I fucking rocked it. I killed it. I sold everything to everybody we knew. He was 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 that, you're great, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The minute I called back 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.

• 1:04:11Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  And um, once they got, you know, 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.

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  I had to explain to them.

• 1:04:30Bunnie XO?

  And that's what they called him at school?

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  They, 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, and 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, so my friend, she'll know I'm Latin. So it's like how everybody looks at it differently where I never looked at anybody as a true color unless it was like actually said out loud.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  I never really, so in the South, that's what it was about, but I guess because my husband was light, you know, they could never really say anything like as far as like, you know.

• 1:05:28Bunnie XO?

  You know, yeah.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  Shamed you. Where like they're having like an interracial child.

• 1:05:32Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  It wasn't 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 with the fuck I want to date? Wasn't, my father would find out if I was doing something on a, like I say on the weekend. By Tuesday, as 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 Chase is never came home and told me. Some guy that I thought it was cool to like have in my sweet sixteen, 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

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  somebody lived on the block that knew my father. So it was like, cause I could never say where I truly was. 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 drugs. So I knew to always stay away from that. So when I went out, I wasn't like that type of partier. I just wanted to go out and be free. 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 lot of uh, MLB.

• 1:07:04Bunnie XO?

  So speaking of MLB, let's talk about how you got integrated into the whole Mob Wives thing and like take, take me on that journey with you. Cause you're just coming home.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  Just coming home. I was asked to do it the first year I had her, I had.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  Then came when these other girls got wind of it. Holy shit, you could 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 um, Atlanta Housewives, you get a peach? 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.

• 1:07:41Bunnie XO?

  They didn't want you on the show.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  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 gonna put Ramona on the show.

• 1:07:52Bunnie XO?

  Which one? Who is it?

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  Her name starts with a D.

• 1:07:55Bunnie XO?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  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, 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.

• 1:08:29Bunnie XO?

  Right. That was, that was a crazy iconic episode, though. Your mouth bleeding and you just literally scream, like, I, you would have put the fear of God into anybody trying to get to her.

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  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 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.

• 1:09:04Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Just, you know what I mean? The quietest person in the room could be the toughest.

• 1:09:08Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  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, your broils back in the day. Fine. But a lot of that stuff, it was a real shit show.

• 1:09:21Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  You know, as far as the rift 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's how me, it was my boyfriend mode. 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.

• 1:10:20Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Because they've signed on for the show.

• 1:10:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  You know, I could handle anything that's thrown to me, but sometimes it's like they had you to degree faking it's a, you know, just funk it to 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, everybody doesn't know. It's not like Big Brother that the cameras are in your house.

• 1:10:57Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:57Speaker 02

  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,

• 1:11:04Bunnie XO?

  Who's Adam? Is he the producer?

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  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, because he had to reenact it. I'm like, is there something wrong with me because I didn't cry? Because they wanted me to call Karen. She's like, no, you were crying. Oh, 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.

• 1:11:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:11:44Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  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 pitting,

• 1:11:52Bunnie XO?

  Bringing up old wounds.

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  And it's getting worse.

• 1:11:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:12:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  And it was sad. It was sad. It was a lot of sad things, you know, on the show. Made up with Rita, we were cool. Then one time her and Carla 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 that. 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?

• 1:12:42Bunnie XO?

  Who's Muslim?

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Rita.

• 1:12:43Bunnie XO?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  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?

• 1:12:49Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  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 gonna have the show and this is gonna be the name of it. This girl deserves to be here more than any of yous. Cause 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.

• 1:13:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  I'm dating somebody that obviously just made the news and we were gonna get 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 I, if we could all do something together, make money, what the, 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's are making bank. Nobody walked off the show rich.

• 1:13:51Bunnie XO?

  Nobody helped you guys. It was just kind of like they just, I don't wanna, you know, I'll use the term loosely, but it was almost like they just used you guys for views.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  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 you're manager, doesn't your manager get you deals and she's entitled? So whatever I brought in, it was like being an escort. I had to give it to you no matter what.

• 1:14:15Bunnie XO?

  Yep.

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  And then at the end of it, what we found out, me and Karen, that Rita and Carla had fired the management team, which was producer Jennifer Graziano. And we're supposed to be child of friends, so they're not paying you, but us struggling moms. Are paying you. So Dree is even making more money. Call 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 costs too much money because that'll come out of your pocket. And then later on.

• 1:14:50Bunnie XO?

  Lots of shady business.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  Lot of shady business.

• 1:14:53Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  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 Toni from BMF.

• 1:15:19Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:15:20Speaker 02

  And she told me, she goes, you're blackballed and. On VH1, she goes on MTV because I sold, I signed, I don't know what I was signing. Signed over my likelihood.

• 1:15:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  So I couldn't, I couldn't be on any other show, even though I was still part of. Dating somebody incarcerated because 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 always told them, if there's anything you want to ask me, ask me.

• 1:16:14Speaker 02

  Um, whatever you're into, God forbid you get in trouble, let me know. I'm always gonna be, I'm gonna yell.

• 1:16:20Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Because that's just what I do, but I'm always gonna have your back.

• 1:16:22Bunnie XO?

  That's how I am with our, 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.

• 1:16:31Speaker 02

  And you know, you could save them because they're, you know, you're young. I don't, I want somebody to have my back because I was always very. Sneaky. I had to grow up to be that way because it was either that or. Childhood.

• 1:16:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  I wasn't, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I wanted to, 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.

• 1:16:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  You know, God watched.

• 1:16:53Bunnie XO?

  I think that's part of growing up.

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, God made sure that we were okay.

• 1:16:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  But the show and so many different outlets, it puts you in scenarios that you never ever would have had yourself into. Like, everything was a fucking party.

• 1:17:06Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:07Speaker 02

  Like, you know what I mean?

• 1:17:07Bunnie XO?

  And alcohol heightens things and I'm sure, you know.

• 1:17:10Speaker 02

  Egos. Ego was the biggest thing.

• 1:17:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  Egos.

• 1:17:13Bunnie XO?

  Ego, alcohol, fucking all of it.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  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. Remember Omarosa, how she was on one of the reality shows?

• 1:17:33Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, Omarosa, yep.

• 1:17:34Speaker 02

  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 Rita is picking on my cousin, so I'm not gonna stand by. First of all, there's no reason to fight.

• 1:17:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  Yous 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 boop, boop, bop. And I'm like, oh, God, please, just let me just control this. You gotta see how people were, this was the height of Twitter.

• 1:18:01Bunnie XO?

  Twitter is rough. It has a rough crowd.

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  But so remember, this was the height of it.

• 1:18:06Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:18:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  The frigging Woody call hits me up. They're like, Feech one, you can't talk like that. Why not? Do you see what they're saying me? So now you're even censoring what the hell I'm answering back.

• 1:18:32Bunnie XO?

  Ah, in real life.

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  Frigging Twitter.

• 1:18:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:34Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? So now, like, they're watching you.

• 1:18:36Bunnie XO?

  That's why I won't sell our shows that I do, that my, my production company does, the Bunny X O Show on the Meet the DeFords. Because I'm, you're just not gonna tell me.

• 1:18:44Speaker 02

  Control.

• 1:18:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, you're not gonna control anything, the narrative.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  Editing is a motherfucker.

• 1:18:49Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  Well, that's what they did. Then later on, we stepped into some other, um, you know, into the light of say this word. You gotta do it because they're your boss. You're getting paid. And then they would place it someplace else. And then, you know, there were a lot of people.

• 1:19:09Bunnie XO?

  It's like entrapment.

• 1:19:10Speaker 02

  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. Um, going into my second season, but then after that, that, that year when we found out some stuff, I was like, I'm out. Like it was either it was gonna be this way or that way. And I just got a bad taste because money is a lot of times the root of all evil. And that's what truly 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 my wives, I still made it. Like I, the point of making it is, I got to raise my children. I got to. I live better than I lived before.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  You know, it got to be where one time I remember Renee, she's like with the Twitter, again with the fucking Twitter.

• 1:20:00Bunnie XO?

  Renee is hilarious.

• 1:20:02Speaker 02

  And like she, we, 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 her money to go to Vegas to, when you went to California to go to the show, I handed her money. The poor girl that just came back had nothing. Who was taking the nail polish off your toes because you had to go and to get yourself clean? I wanted her to get better. So with or without the show, she'll always hold us, you know, a, a soft spot in my heart. We didn't speak to, for each other for a while because 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, whoa, whoa, back up the bus, baby.

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  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, um, we weren't like, um,

• 1:21:04Speaker 02

  Some people are. Renee never worked. So throughout this lifestyle, there's different ways that you handle in your house.

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  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, 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. But it just, it just created a snowball of monsters, but 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,

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  you know, an everyday job that you know you could really like have a business. I would pick that because this comes with a lot of shit. 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 own a pizzeria. And I'm like, we thought this guy was really coming because the stuff that he was saying, it was scary. You know, because we're out there now, we can't like, because when I go places, I usually say where I am after. Not because I'm no big deal, because there's weirdos.

• 1:22:19Bunnie XO?

  Well, you have to, yeah, people.

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  Sitting ducks. You know, so it was different, but I always said, like, listen, these people that there's just out of their way to be mean.

• 1:22:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Oh, the people online.

• 1:22:33Speaker 02

  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 is all cave like.

• 1:22:45Bunnie XO?

  I think it gives you character though.

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  No, but I, 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, you're, she's a nasal bitch. She talks like the neck. 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. I remember when I was five and I went to jail like.

• 1:23:17Bunnie XO?

  People on the internet are a different beast. It's um.

• 1:23:20Speaker 02

  Bullying.

• 1:23:22Bunnie XO?

  Stand up against it because I just don't think it's right.

• 1:23:25Speaker 02

  It's not right.

• 1:23:26Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  They're gonna have somebody. They're gonna get to it.

• 1:23:57Bunnie XO?

  Yes, exactly. So it's like I just, these platforms, I've been working with um this foundation and I'm hoping to do a lot more with them, but they um, 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.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  And it's also about images, like I, the only thing I commend Facebook about when they took away the likes. Because a lot of, you know, little girls 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. 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 and 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.

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  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 substance abuse. It could be from your inner, it could be from autoimmune.

• 1:25:12Bunnie XO?

  Trauma.

• 1:25:13Speaker 02

  Trauma.

• 1:25:16Speaker 02

  By trauma. You know, how the hell did, nobody in my family that I know of has fibromyalgia or neuropathy. I wanted up with both.

• 1:25:24Bunnie XO?

  From all the stress.

• 1:25:27Speaker 02

  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 uses one of those. And I'm like, you scream, people cry.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  And she's in Cali and I'm like, am I ready for that? But that's built up.

• 1:25:42Bunnie XO?

  Cause that's opening a Pandora's box too. Once you open that up, you have to deal with everything that you start feeling too. So.

• 1:25:48Speaker 02

  And it's like a lot of different things that I know that I have in within me, but it has to be up to me when I'm ready.

• 1:25:54Bunnie XO?

  You also battled an eating disorder, correct?

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  So I was just always chubby.

• 1:25:59Bunnie XO?

  I could have swore that we had talked about an eating disorder, but maybe.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  That, you know, when I was younger, I was, you know, a little bit overweight and I had that and but nothing like, no.

• 1:26:10Bunnie XO?

  Do you still battle with depression and anxiety?

• 1:26:12Speaker 02

  I have my moments.

• 1:26:14Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 1:26:29Speaker 02

  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 some degree was restricted. So it was music, music was my therapy. That was my outlet. When I was younger, it was writing. Uh, 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. Cause unless I'm really ready, I can tell you whatever.

• 1:26:53Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:26:53Speaker 02

  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, it goes back to the issues of abandonment and stuff like that. And I think I have to be fully ready.

• 1:27:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, to open those.

• 1:27:09Speaker 02

  Because it go, you know, it, it, it goes into like a lot of other things. It's like, there's no reason why I shouldn't remember what that jail cell is 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 like, here we go back to the Sopranos.

• 1:27:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:27:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:40Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:27:51Bunnie XO?

  That's why I do holistic. That's why I always do holistic, um, eastern medicine, not western medicine, because western medicine, all they want to do is throw pills.

• 1:27:59Speaker 02

  Big farm.

• 1:27:59Bunnie XO?

  They tried to put me on fucking blood pressure pills last year and it came down to the, the fact that I was allergic to rice.

• 1:28:05Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:28:05Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 1:28:13Speaker 02

  You're smart as fuck.

• 1:28:13Bunnie XO?

  Well, I appreciate you, but I just knew that it wa- 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.

• 1:28:21Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:28:26Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:27Speaker 02

  So like, I get all the things you're saying and I can relate to it, but like, this bitch is a 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, nah. She goes, why? Cause you wanna be skinny cause you're going on bunny? No jerk off. I can't eat cheese for another three weeks. 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. Cause I don't wanna go on goddamn medicine. I had an issue with my heart. This guy's putting me on everything. I'm like, yeah, for the rest of my life.

• 1:29:10Bunnie XO?

  Yes, they will. And they have no problem doing it.

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  They get paid off of it.

• 1:29:14Bunnie XO?

  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 wanna keep you sick. But you have to be your own advocate. If, if the best thing, and this is my, everybody, all my listeners know this, I advocate for getting your own blood work done.

• 1:29:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:29:30Bunnie XO?

  You can go to any fucking anytime labs. They'll give you your.

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  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, um, this one doctor, he did more than what the regular doctor would do. I forgot what it's called. Again, I'm not good with all the names.

• 1:29:46Bunnie XO?

  And all the, all the panels, you have to do hormones. You have to do the heart. You have to do, like, they're all separate panels and it's expensive. But it's like, you have to do that unless, or you're gonna be stuck taking pills. Like you have to advocate for yourself.

• 1:29:59Speaker 02

  Truly healthy in America, you need to have money. Vitamins cost a shitload of money. There are a couple of hundred a month.

• 1:30:05Bunnie XO?

  It's so sad.

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  You have to make sure that, you know, when I was scared shitless about two years ago, I thought like I was gonna have a heart attack. They were gonna 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's too low, get off of it. And I said, holy fuck. And then they're like, do you make money off of this?

• 1:30:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:30:34Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 1:30:51Speaker 02

  You know that um I put a post about this. Sugar is harder to get off than cocaine. So for me, that's my issue.

• 1:30:59Bunnie XO?

  Coconut sugar.

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  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 that 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 and 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.

• 1:31:27Bunnie XO?

  No, but you're not.

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  No, no, but you've known it. So now. Do I, like something you said about your husband, like somebody had said to our bed, which I was commending you, you're like, does it bother you that he drinks and he smokes and you said whenever he's ready? 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 gonna come because I know at the end, if I don't. I could probably lose a fucking toe.

• 1:31:55Bunnie XO?

  Don't be losing toes.

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:32:05Bunnie XO?

  Listen, that ass with a walking chair will be hot, okay? Wear those little body suits, you'll be good. Bling the fucking walker out. No, but you just, you have to be your own advocate and it's all about what you put in your body.

• 1:32:19Speaker 02

  But years ago, everything was glass. But now.

• 1:32:23Bunnie XO?

  Plastic.

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  You go in the freezer, it takes, puts shit into the water. Send this shit in the water, but now all we can't because it's dangerous. Was always with glass. All of a sudden the motherfuckers want plastic. It just because it's easier.

• 1:32:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:37Speaker 02

  But they have to make us sick because they make the money off it. If you know, you know.

• 1:32:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely. I pre- I could 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 immortal, you know, you you have to do things to to make sure that I 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.

• 1:33:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:10Bunnie XO?

  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 ki- 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 seventy.

• 1:33:32Speaker 02

  A couple of things that needs to be restoring and just kind of get like a little bit of a clean path, you know?

• 1:33:37Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:38Speaker 02

  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. It maybe led me into like after that to start meditating and start making intention candles and just like doing certain things to find my peace.

• 1:33:57Bunnie XO?

  Meditating is amazing.

• 1:33:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:34:09Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:09Speaker 02

  We all lived in the same area, bunny. So but then it also makes you think, gee, if you're really about it, why don't you come ring my fucking doorbell?

• 1:34:15Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  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 you're only gonna 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 gonna look? And what's my outfit? Other than that, I could be myself more than twenty four seven. I don't have a problem. But with that, I think after leaving it and everything else, I don't think if I would have had all these issues going on, I could have remained. 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.

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  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 there was like, bring mob wives back. Do you really want to see girls either in their late forties or early fifties?

• 1:35:16Bunnie XO?

  Fist fighting?

• 1:35:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Come on. It's like grandma's cop. Stop. Just slow it down. Like, what could we really fight about? Yeah. 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 the, 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.

• 1:35:41Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  So is it really normal to really, so everyone's like, I think sometimes things.

• 1:35:47Speaker 02

  They're done. Like, just let them to rest.

• 1:35:49Bunnie XO?

  Let sleeping dogs lie.

• 1:35:50Speaker 02

  Like, you know, every time they do have to do a remake of this movie, just sometimes it's best keep it original.

• 1:35:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  So, you know, I, we appreciate the fans, like, hey, get a comeback. 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.

• 1:36:07Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  You gotta ask yourself, America, you really want to see old people fighting? Like, I, I don't know. You know what I mean?

• 1:36:14Bunnie XO?

  Clip that, Jason.

• 1:36:17Bunnie XO?

  So what, what, what can we expect from you? Like, you, you spoke about a book or?

• 1:36:23Speaker 02

  A book will definitely be coming in. Like I said, it's all about timing. I, I can't control what God has, you know?

• 1:36:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:27Speaker 02

  People living or dying.

• 1:36:28Bunnie XO?

  Well, shout out your company and stuff like that.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  Um, I do have a spiritual line, spiritual slinger. I make intention candles. I have fun just like, you know, going on social media. People are so, like, 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, if we don't help each other, who's gonna help you?

• 1:36:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:53Speaker 02

  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 sinking. You want to be on the boat where we all could survive.

• 1:37:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:01Speaker 02

  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 fun, I'm down for it. You know what I'm saying? So I'm always still active on my pages. I'm more um in love with just watching TikTok because you people are incredible like. You like you, but other people like.

• 1:37:24Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah, no, they're great.

• 1:37:26Speaker 02

  Like, there's people that you don't even know. I don't even know about. And they have like two hundred million of my doors, 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.

• 1:37:38Bunnie XO?

  It's crazy. There are so many nooks and crannies of TikTok that I can't even fathom them.

• 1:37:44Speaker 02

  And that was one of the reasons why they wanted to take it down because it it goes in every area. It goes in hell.

• 1:37:49Bunnie XO?

  Universal.

• 1:37:50Speaker 02

  It goes in every and then you're like, shit, they're learning this shit in China.

• 1:37:53Bunnie XO?

  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 fricking.

• 1:38:06Speaker 02

  And you're like, wow, is this real? Like you only read about this in your history books. It's wild.

• 1:38:11Bunnie XO?

  No, it's crazy.

• 1:38:12Speaker 02

  So I'm like, I like some, I'm like, my friends, like, you have to do more and people love you. I'm like, I'm like so amazed. I'm like, no, I'm like scrolling through this shit. Like, I can't compete with this. This is wild.

• 1:38:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, but you just being you. I told Karen that too. I was like, you guys have to get on TikTok because you guys.

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:38:34Bunnie XO?

  It's a, it's a business.

• 1:38:35Speaker 02

  It's a business. And that's what I'm like, because there's a lot of 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.

• 1:38:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  It's a fascinating world. Like, I like it more than Instagram because it's like not censored. Like, they'll give you so much more.

• 1:38:59Bunnie XO?

  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.

• 1:39:11Speaker 02

  Twitter's own, same people.

• 1:39:13Bunnie XO?

  Got a report.

• 1:39:13Speaker 02

  Not Twitter anymore. Facebook. But see, they don't censor you on Facebook because Instagram and Facebook are the same people.

• 1:39:19Bunnie XO?

  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 a hate speech when she's just speaking about, you know, like it's just

• 1:39:34Speaker 02

  And then you're at their mercy because if you get a certain amount of flags,

• 1:39:37Bunnie XO?

  Yep, they'll take your account.

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  And then you can't like, and it's

• 1:39:41Bunnie XO?

  My account's been taken twice before.

• 1:39:43Speaker 02

  Imagine it's not by a hacker, it's by the actual company.

• 1:39:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:45Speaker 02

  It's crazy. It's crazy.

• 1:39:48Bunnie XO?

  Ramona, it's been so nice just sitting here. I feel like I could talk to you forever.

• 1:39:52Speaker 02

  Well, I probably could tell you more about your life than, you know, you know, because I'm a bunny stalker. Like I just love the shit out of her.

• 1:39:59Bunnie XO?

  I love you.

• 1:40:00Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:40:10Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  And, you know, she became very successful. She became a lawyer. Her mom, her mom told her, she said, if you, um, I wanted her 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, 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 gotta 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.

• 1:40:48Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 1:40:49Speaker 02

  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's become a lawyer. She worked.

• 1:41:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:17Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:41:32Bunnie XO?

  You were her advocate, so now she's advocating.

• 1:41:34Speaker 02

  Yes, she, 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 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 and you have to be very selective.

• 1:42:00Bunnie XO?

  Therapy's not for everybody.

• 1:42:01Speaker 02

  Because also too, he could be half a kook. You gotta make sure that you get the right people. Like it's sad to say you have to do your homework.

• 1:42:08Bunnie XO?

  No, some of the craziest humans become psychiatrists.

• 1:42:11Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:42:20Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no, it's accurate.

• 1:42:21Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Like for me, they're like, well, you really were gonna get married to a man in jail. At that time I was and we were gonna have it like kinda 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 wanna look. Like you, like you got ten heads, but you wouldn't even know how to operate these heads if you're in this body.

• 1:42:49Bunnie XO?

  Couldn't walk a mile in the shoes. Yeah. Ramona, why don't you tell people where they can find you online?

• 1:42:54Speaker 02

  Um, Ramona Rizzo on Instagram, the real Ramona on Rizzo on TikTok. And that's about it.

• 1:43:02Bunnie XO?

  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' stories and just falls in love with you even more.

• 1:43:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, just follow the, you know, if you wanna 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 gotta give it back to lawyers. And you lose, nothing is more precious than time. You know, nothing. So people like, I wanna be with a gangster. No, you don't. It's a waste. It's a waste of a life.

• 1:43:46Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 1:43:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:48Bunnie XO?

  I couldn't agree. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  Love coming.

• 1:43:53Bunnie XO?

  You're gonna have to come back and visit me when you write that book.

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  Uh, sure. I will.

• 1:43:56Bunnie XO?

  All right.

• 1:43:57Speaker 02

  I'll get it to your girlfriend.

• 1:43:58Bunnie XO?

  All right. And thank you guys for tuning into another episode of Dumb Blonde. I will see you guys next week. Bye.