Network: BRAVO
Series: The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Episode: Season 2 Episode 6
OK, I'm going to write while I watch the show tonight. Apparently, Dina's ill-conceived showdown with Danielle will take place tonight. Also, the big news on the web this weekend is that free-spending Teresa and her "juicy" hubby are 11 Million dollars in debt. Well, hell, give me credit like that and watch me spend! I could put TT to shame, because I know where to shop and I've got GOOD taste. How did they get 8 mortgages on 3 houses? I was actually a loan officer for a brief while I couldn't get a mortgage! (I didn't try, but I know what the standards were and I'd never qualify.)
Here we go: Gia has an audition. There goes Teresa with the baby in a little carrier and Gia has a bag - is she moving in? Why do they need all that stuff for an audition? The part is for a Christian Slater movie, and a guy has a bunch of kids off in a separate room while Teresa waits in the outer room with other parents, to whom she brags about Gia and then announces that she is "SO not a stage mom." The look of disbelief on one father's face is priceless.
We're at the Brownstone, where they're working hard setting up for an event. They're rehashing the fact that no one threw Danielle out of the previous event except Danielle. True, but that doesn't matter, guys, because Danielle is nuts. What part of that don't they understand?
Jac is at the salon for a pedicure, and in comes Kim G., mother of Chris's best friend who also attended the infamous benefit with Danielle. She and Jac greet each other, Jac's talking head says she doesn't know her well, but she knows she friends with Danielle. Kim starts to talk about Danielle and Jac's baby starts to cry. Good boy, Nicholas! Kim won't be deterred by a perfectly timed crying baby, though, so Jac is regaled with the story of Kim's embarrassment at the scene Danielle caused and Kim says she wants to talk to Danielle about it. Jac warns her that Danielle can blow the simplest criticism up into a huge conflict. Kim still wants to give her a chance. To use a line Danielle stole from Julia Roberts: Big mistake. Huge! In her talking head interview, Jac makes a funny comparison between Danielle and Linda Blair in the Exorcist. I'd take Linda over Danielle any day.
Danielle is getting her makeup done because Kim G. is throwing Danielle her first grown-up birthday party. That's sad. I do believe this woman has had a rough life, but as Dina says, that's not an excuse to be evil. Danielle is getting her hair and makeup done and Kim confronts her about Danny calling Chris a faggot. Kim doesn't want Danny at the party and is worried about another big scene. Danielle is, as predicted, offended. She starts going off about the Manzos. Kim G. says she didn't like it, and doesn't want to be subjected to it again, and let's go to a party! The first thing Danielle does is start telling people they just had a fight. They're in the parking lot, Danielle is crying, Kim says she has to defend her son's best friend. Danielle is angry that she has to hear about the Manzos on her birthday. Kim tells Danielle she cares too much about them, and Danielle snaps at her, so she placates her and they go back in. Danielle does at least pull it together enough to give a toast thanking Kim for the party, but Kim is sort of continuing to argue, saying they'll have their differences no matter what.
Dina is working with an assistant, talking about her charity for kids with cancer. She's aggravated about the scene at the Brownstone because it was for a sick baby, brings up Danny calling Chris a gay slur, and just wants it all to end. Dina makes the decision to confront Danielle. *Sigh. Dina, Dina, Dina - she's nuts. You can't reason with a nut. If they made sense, they wouldn't call them crazy. Dina is determined to confront her, not wanting a replay of last year, which was very hard on Dina and we can see it has taken its toll. (Let me interject here that I'm not making light of Danielle's mental illness. I do believe she's a borderline personality and is legitimately dangerous. I deal with mental illness every day of my life and this is how I handle it - I detach. I'm a nut, too, just not a dangerous one.)
Back at the agent's office with Gia and Teresa. Gia didn't get the part, apparently because of her thick New Jersey accent. Teresa, who has a very strong Jersey accent, says she doesn't know what that is because she was born there. They get the kid a voice coach, though Gia and TT don't like the idea. The first lesson is very difficult since Gia says Cawfee instead of Coffee and progress is slow, to say the least.
Danielle has discovered she has a hate page set up about her on FaceBook, allegedly by Jac's daughter Ashley, and she is losing her freaking mind. Danielle says this has been going on for 6 months and she's afraid because she's not a fighter. Kim G. tells Danielle to go to the police and just end it. Don't help, Kim! Any way, Danielle feels terrorized and just wants the Manzos to leave her alone. I find it hard to believe Ashley is smart enough to use a computer, but Jac is going to confront her so we'll see momentarily.
Teresa and Jac meet up in a restaurant. Jac tells TT that Danielle is telling people that Ashley threatened to kill her and she's going to send the police to their house to arrest her. Jac calls Ashley and insists that she meet her at the restaurant and be prepared to tell the truth. Jac explains to Teresa that while she was in the hospital with the baby, Ashley and Danielle had a FaceBook or Twitter or text war. Ashley shows up and Jac asks her if it is true. She's fudging a little, but she's also defending what she did. Jac tells Teresa that Danielle reportedly called Ashley a whore and Ashley says Danielle called her fat. Jac tells her that Danielle is claiming she threatened her and to let her know if she hears from Danielle again. This is not going to be good.
Danielle and Danny Pro are shopping for a suit because she thinks this will make him more acceptable to Kim G. Danielle says they have to have a pin stripe because they're Italian. Danielle was adopted and the records are sealed, but she has several colorful stories about her supposed Italian roots and they seem very, very important to her. Danielle's phone rings and it's Dina. Oy. Dina asks Danielle to meet her at Chakra. I love Dina. She's a Goddess worshiper and doesn't even know it, but that's a whole different post. Danielle and Danny Pro discuss the prospect and they get a little paranoid, as they are wont to do, so Danielle calls back to confirm it's just the two women. Danny says he'll be available if Danielle needs him.
Now we're with Ashley and Derek, the dull-witted boyfriend - boring! They carry on the family tradition of bashing Danielle. Jac calls yelling that she knows Ashley put on FaceBook that Danielle put out a warrant for her arrest and to take it down immediately. Yikes. Even dumb Derek says it was ridiculous for Ashley to put that up on FaceBook. Ashley tells Derek she wants more people on her side than Danielle's side. Ashley feels justified because D. has done so many things to her family, but again, nobody will tell us what she's supposed to have done. Why Ashley is even involved in this, I have no idea. She's 18, so she's an adult and I have to say it. Ashley is lost. Danielle is nuts, but Ashley is lost. Why an adult like Danielle would engage in a web war with a teenager like Ashley, I don't know, but neither side has any excuse for this behavior.
There's a vignette of Caroline and Albert shopping, and a talking head of Albie saying his dad was a fat guy when she married him. Albert wants a porter house steak, but Caroline rolls her eyes because that's not on his new diet. The old man is looking positively svelte, so I agree with Caroline, pass it up.
Caroline is having a huge family dinner, but Dina isn't going because she needs to confront Danielle. Idiot. Not only is she going on a fool's errand, she's missing one of Caroline's dinners to do it. I wish I could go in her place! Teresa calls and she's running late, as usual, and everyone is sitting around the table waiting for her and Juicy Joe.
Dina gets ready to get closure on the conflict. We see she and Danielle getting ready. Dina is determined and says she's not afraid of Danielle. Danielle calls Danny because she's a little bit afraid. He's waiting in the parking lot.
Back at dinner with the Manzos and CJ is going to deliver plates of pasta. He's a sweet little kid, so far. Ashley brings up Danielle, though they had agreed not to bring her up. Jac reports that people are calling her with warnings that Danielle is going to have Ashley arrested. Ashley says Danielle started it. Caroline thinks she should stay out of it, but says her reason, which is to protect her family, is right but the delivery is wrong. No, Caroline, Ashley is harassing Danielle because she knows you all will let her get away with it. Call it tribalism, call it sadism, ethnocentrism, whatever, but it's what stupid people do when they think someone is not as good as they are - they feel entitled to torture them. In the web war, I'm afraid I'm on Danielle's side.
Albie and Chris are talking about Danielle threatening Joe for making a gay joke, but that Danny Pro called Chris an effing fa**ot and she didn't say anything about it. Teresa chimes in as a talking head, reminiscing about Danielle getting mad at Joe for using he word "gay" at their group dance lesson last season. Caroline tries to tell them all Danielle is not rational. Jac doesn't want to talk about Danielle and they all make a pact never to speak of Danielle again. That will last about 2 minutes.
Dina arrives at Chakra and tells us that this is her meeting, it's about closure for her, her boundaries, not Danielle. I'd like to think Dina is too smart to really believe that, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. Danielle arrives, and they don't order because Dina doesn't have a lot to say. Dina begins by affirming that Danielle claims to be on a spiritual path and she supports that, but that she wants closure. She forgave her but nothing has changed. Dina says the only thing making her unhappy is having Danielle in her life. Dina is trying to draw a boundary and it's not working. Danielle is complaining about Ashley and says her opinion of Dina is based on what Jac told her about her. Dina tries to get them focused, Danielle is getting loud and they start going back and forth and the show ends. WTF?!
The fight continues next week. Son of a bitch.
Preview for Next Week: Danielle's sex tape hits the papers and one housewife leaves the show forever! WHO is it?! Any guesses? I know what I think.
Also, Danielle gives lessons on the stripper pole. I'm telling you, she's like a whole new person - NOT!
Showing posts with label Danielle Staub. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danielle Staub. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Catching up: The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Network: BRAVO
Series: RHONJ
Episode: Post Season 2, Ep. 5
The new season of Real Housewives of New Jersey is already underway, so I'm going to do an overview here and then start writing about each episode as it airs. RHONJ is unique in that the cast is built around a family. There's matriarch of the Manzo clan, Caroline, who is the uber-mom. She's probably older than I am, but I still wish she would adopt me. She's mother to Lauren, Chris and Albie, and married to Albert Manzo, who co-owns a banquet hall called the Brownstone with his brother, Tommy, who is married to Caroline's sister Dina. Dina is drop dead gorgeous, smart, funny and surprisingly spiritual. Dina and Caroline's brother Chris Laurita married Jacqueline and they have Ashley (from Jac's previous marriage) age 18, CJ, who is about 5(?) and new baby Nicholas, who's already a heartbreaker and needs more screentime.
The Manzos and Laritas are close friends with Teresa Giudice's family, which includes her husband Joe and four daughters, Gia, Gabriella, Milania and newest bambina, Audriana. Dina is going to be Audriana's godmother and the family likes to joke that baby Nicholas and Audriana will get married some day. It wouldn't surprise me a bit. Teresa's husband Joe was in the hospital the day she was born, so it would be like carrying on a family tradition. Nicholas slept through their first meeting, but he did bring Audriana a pretty rose.
Gia is going to be a star if she has anything to say about it and works hard toward that end in spite of being only 8 years old. She just walked at NY Fashion Week, which I'll talk more about later. The last housewife, who represents a common enemy for the Manzos, is Danielle Staub. A former friend of Jacqueline's, she's a divorcee who has two gorgeous kids named Jillian and Christine. The elder, Christine, is 15 and was recently scouted by an important modeling agency, IMG and debuted at Fashion Week, too. Danielle's first ex-husband, Kevin Maher, wrote a book called Cop Without a Badge that brought a lot of Danielle's past, which she worked hard to bury, back to light. She has an autobiography out that doesn't match up to what can be read on line in court documents. Court documents show her arrested in a house with 6 kilos of cocaine, and she was reportedly a call girl who participated, according to court documents, in a kidnapping for ransom, but she turned state's evidence and her charges were reduced to almost nothing but drug rehab.
Now here's where the story gets murky. In the first season, we hear Dina say she doesn't remember what the conflict was about, but she might have threatened to "kick her ass," but we don't know why. Danielle is, for some reason, obsessed with Dina and will do strange stalker behaviors like showing up at the beauty shop where the girls are getting ready for an evening of partying to which she is not invited, or threatening to buzz Caroline's house where a fundraiser for the sheriff is happening because she wasn't told about it. The thing is, it was a thousand-dollar a plate dinner and anyone could have purchased a ticket, though Danielle is supposedly broke. Anyway, last season, Danielle was convinced that Dina dug up the ex-husband's book and humiliated her. Caroline says she did it, but most sources indicate that people in the small community they live in already knew about it. If Danielle hadn't been threatening toward Dina, I don't think anyone would ever have heard of the book.
Unfortunately, Danielle is a borderline personality who lives to create drama, so she accepted an invitation to a dinner party at a restaurant hosted by Teresa. After everyone ate, Danielle broke out the book and a fight ensued that resulted in the infamous table-tipping by Teresa who screamed "prostitution whore! You were fucking engaged 19 times" at her among other things. Do not mess with Teresa when she's throwing a dinner party. BRAVO got their highest ratings ever (until Kelly Bensimon's breakdown this year. That'll be a different post.)
Dina, who is the focus of Danielle's anger for some reason, ended the evening shaking, and I don't blame her. She joked one time that she didn't know if Danielle wanted to "be me or pull a Silence of the Lambs and skin me and wear me like last year's Versace." It was funny when she said it, but now, in their second season, more has happened off screen that they're not telling us and Dina has become very withdrawn. If I were she, I'd be nervous, too, especially since she's had threatening phone calls and her mailbox vandalized, at least.
Teresa's history with Danielle is troubled, too. According to page 69 of her best selling book, Skinny Italian, when they first became acquainted, Danielle asked to bring her kids to their shore house. The Giudice's welcomed them until one day, Danielle's boyfriend took a seat in a recliner in the room where all the kids were watching cartoons. Danielle reportedly came into the room and climbed on top of him and they started becoming "intimate" in front of the kids until Joe called the guy outside and had words with him. The Giudice's are kind of 'old school,' but I don't think anyone would appreciate that kind of behavior in front of their kids.
The most recent episode, number 5 from season 2, had Danielle attending a fundraiser at the Brownstone for a child with cancer. She had no money to donate, but she got a wealthy friend to buy a table for ten. Unfortunately, the ex-con Danielle hired for "protection" had a bunch of ex-cons and bikers (a Hell's Angels vest was flashed for the cameras) meet them at the door, so she had twice the number of people with her to fit the table they bought. I'm not clear on why people who hadn't paid got through the door, but they did and they made a fuss. Danielle burdened the family of the poor child, Emanuela, with her drama, creating a scene and then marching out claiming she was leaving with dignity. Her dignity, if she ever had any, vanished when she brought these ex-cons into the mix, but she felt like she showed something to somebody. She considered it a victory in some way, but it was really a disgrace. I felt so grimy after just watching the spectacle that I made a donation to the little girl's charity. She's in remission, but the family has piles of hospital bills. If you'd like to donate, go here:
Emanuela's Heart for Hope
Somehow, this is going to lead to a showdown between Dina and Danielle. Dina wants it all to end, but a person like Danielle doesn't let go of an obsession like this just because you call a truce. Dina called her a sociopath on the show and I think that's an accurate description. Under no circumstances would I be in the same place with her if I were Dina, but we know it's going to happen.
Why am I covering this show? Well, first of all, I lived on the East Coast for 15 years and I love "Jersey Girls," which is not the same as a girl who happens to live in New Jersey. I love the families on this show - they're funny, warm and likable, for the most part. There's a tendency to try to spin the show as a "real Sopranos," but from what I see, they're just a close knit Italian family. People love to throw stereotypes around, you know?
I feel a little out of place on line, though, because the trend seems to be against the RHONJ crowd. People can be really vicious, especially about Teresa's family. I can't believe how cruel people can be toward her children. There's an unfortunate feud right now between Teresa and Bethenny from RHNYC. Teresa has unfortunately fallen under the spell of narcissistic Jill Zarin, who has been on a smear campaign against Bethenny, and now Alex, on her show. Jill fights dirty and plants stories in the press to mess with her cast mates. Teresa seems to be joining the fight, even dragging Dina into it on Twitter, but Dina tweeted immediately that she had no problem with Bethenny.
Yeah, it's high school stuff, but it's also fun until you get hung up on divided loyalties. I enjoy living vicariously through people who have the wherewithall to live in fabulous homes and buy anything they want, even if it turns out to be an illusion, as may be the case with some. I say have fun while it lasts.
Next up, I'm going to talk about the kids,
Series: RHONJ
Episode: Post Season 2, Ep. 5
The new season of Real Housewives of New Jersey is already underway, so I'm going to do an overview here and then start writing about each episode as it airs. RHONJ is unique in that the cast is built around a family. There's matriarch of the Manzo clan, Caroline, who is the uber-mom. She's probably older than I am, but I still wish she would adopt me. She's mother to Lauren, Chris and Albie, and married to Albert Manzo, who co-owns a banquet hall called the Brownstone with his brother, Tommy, who is married to Caroline's sister Dina. Dina is drop dead gorgeous, smart, funny and surprisingly spiritual. Dina and Caroline's brother Chris Laurita married Jacqueline and they have Ashley (from Jac's previous marriage) age 18, CJ, who is about 5(?) and new baby Nicholas, who's already a heartbreaker and needs more screentime.
The Manzos and Laritas are close friends with Teresa Giudice's family, which includes her husband Joe and four daughters, Gia, Gabriella, Milania and newest bambina, Audriana. Dina is going to be Audriana's godmother and the family likes to joke that baby Nicholas and Audriana will get married some day. It wouldn't surprise me a bit. Teresa's husband Joe was in the hospital the day she was born, so it would be like carrying on a family tradition. Nicholas slept through their first meeting, but he did bring Audriana a pretty rose.
Gia is going to be a star if she has anything to say about it and works hard toward that end in spite of being only 8 years old. She just walked at NY Fashion Week, which I'll talk more about later. The last housewife, who represents a common enemy for the Manzos, is Danielle Staub. A former friend of Jacqueline's, she's a divorcee who has two gorgeous kids named Jillian and Christine. The elder, Christine, is 15 and was recently scouted by an important modeling agency, IMG and debuted at Fashion Week, too. Danielle's first ex-husband, Kevin Maher, wrote a book called Cop Without a Badge that brought a lot of Danielle's past, which she worked hard to bury, back to light. She has an autobiography out that doesn't match up to what can be read on line in court documents. Court documents show her arrested in a house with 6 kilos of cocaine, and she was reportedly a call girl who participated, according to court documents, in a kidnapping for ransom, but she turned state's evidence and her charges were reduced to almost nothing but drug rehab.
Now here's where the story gets murky. In the first season, we hear Dina say she doesn't remember what the conflict was about, but she might have threatened to "kick her ass," but we don't know why. Danielle is, for some reason, obsessed with Dina and will do strange stalker behaviors like showing up at the beauty shop where the girls are getting ready for an evening of partying to which she is not invited, or threatening to buzz Caroline's house where a fundraiser for the sheriff is happening because she wasn't told about it. The thing is, it was a thousand-dollar a plate dinner and anyone could have purchased a ticket, though Danielle is supposedly broke. Anyway, last season, Danielle was convinced that Dina dug up the ex-husband's book and humiliated her. Caroline says she did it, but most sources indicate that people in the small community they live in already knew about it. If Danielle hadn't been threatening toward Dina, I don't think anyone would ever have heard of the book.
Unfortunately, Danielle is a borderline personality who lives to create drama, so she accepted an invitation to a dinner party at a restaurant hosted by Teresa. After everyone ate, Danielle broke out the book and a fight ensued that resulted in the infamous table-tipping by Teresa who screamed "prostitution whore! You were fucking engaged 19 times" at her among other things. Do not mess with Teresa when she's throwing a dinner party. BRAVO got their highest ratings ever (until Kelly Bensimon's breakdown this year. That'll be a different post.)
Dina, who is the focus of Danielle's anger for some reason, ended the evening shaking, and I don't blame her. She joked one time that she didn't know if Danielle wanted to "be me or pull a Silence of the Lambs and skin me and wear me like last year's Versace." It was funny when she said it, but now, in their second season, more has happened off screen that they're not telling us and Dina has become very withdrawn. If I were she, I'd be nervous, too, especially since she's had threatening phone calls and her mailbox vandalized, at least.
Teresa's history with Danielle is troubled, too. According to page 69 of her best selling book, Skinny Italian, when they first became acquainted, Danielle asked to bring her kids to their shore house. The Giudice's welcomed them until one day, Danielle's boyfriend took a seat in a recliner in the room where all the kids were watching cartoons. Danielle reportedly came into the room and climbed on top of him and they started becoming "intimate" in front of the kids until Joe called the guy outside and had words with him. The Giudice's are kind of 'old school,' but I don't think anyone would appreciate that kind of behavior in front of their kids.
The most recent episode, number 5 from season 2, had Danielle attending a fundraiser at the Brownstone for a child with cancer. She had no money to donate, but she got a wealthy friend to buy a table for ten. Unfortunately, the ex-con Danielle hired for "protection" had a bunch of ex-cons and bikers (a Hell's Angels vest was flashed for the cameras) meet them at the door, so she had twice the number of people with her to fit the table they bought. I'm not clear on why people who hadn't paid got through the door, but they did and they made a fuss. Danielle burdened the family of the poor child, Emanuela, with her drama, creating a scene and then marching out claiming she was leaving with dignity. Her dignity, if she ever had any, vanished when she brought these ex-cons into the mix, but she felt like she showed something to somebody. She considered it a victory in some way, but it was really a disgrace. I felt so grimy after just watching the spectacle that I made a donation to the little girl's charity. She's in remission, but the family has piles of hospital bills. If you'd like to donate, go here:
Emanuela's Heart for Hope
Somehow, this is going to lead to a showdown between Dina and Danielle. Dina wants it all to end, but a person like Danielle doesn't let go of an obsession like this just because you call a truce. Dina called her a sociopath on the show and I think that's an accurate description. Under no circumstances would I be in the same place with her if I were Dina, but we know it's going to happen.
Why am I covering this show? Well, first of all, I lived on the East Coast for 15 years and I love "Jersey Girls," which is not the same as a girl who happens to live in New Jersey. I love the families on this show - they're funny, warm and likable, for the most part. There's a tendency to try to spin the show as a "real Sopranos," but from what I see, they're just a close knit Italian family. People love to throw stereotypes around, you know?
I feel a little out of place on line, though, because the trend seems to be against the RHONJ crowd. People can be really vicious, especially about Teresa's family. I can't believe how cruel people can be toward her children. There's an unfortunate feud right now between Teresa and Bethenny from RHNYC. Teresa has unfortunately fallen under the spell of narcissistic Jill Zarin, who has been on a smear campaign against Bethenny, and now Alex, on her show. Jill fights dirty and plants stories in the press to mess with her cast mates. Teresa seems to be joining the fight, even dragging Dina into it on Twitter, but Dina tweeted immediately that she had no problem with Bethenny.
Yeah, it's high school stuff, but it's also fun until you get hung up on divided loyalties. I enjoy living vicariously through people who have the wherewithall to live in fabulous homes and buy anything they want, even if it turns out to be an illusion, as may be the case with some. I say have fun while it lasts.
Next up, I'm going to talk about the kids,
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