July 30, 2019 • 23 mins
Dorinda Medley stars in the hit reality show, “The Real Housewives of New York City” and recently announced her brand new SiriusXM radio show “Make it Nice.” She’s known for her quick wit, sunny demeanor, and the ability to wear her heart of her sleeve… no matter what.
In this interview, Dorinda opens up about her life off-screen and what’s given her strength and courage during some of her darkest days.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
She said, listen, let me ask you a question. If
this person came into your life eight years ago and said, Hey, Dorenda,
I'm gonna come into your life. I'm gonna love you,
cherish you, cherish your daughter or draw you. You're gonna
have a great eight years. But then I gotta go,
what'd you take them? I said? Of course, she goes,
well that's what she got. Everything in life has a beginning,
a middle, and an end. It may not be the
(00:21):
timing you want, but everything so you need to be
appreciative of that and you need to move on and
be thankful. Hi. I'm Dr Oz and this is the
(00:48):
Doctor Oz podcast during the Medley Stars and the hit
reality show The Real Housewives of New York City, and
recently announced her brand new series XM radio show. Yeah,
maybe I love what you say that. You know that
became I kind of get our show behind the scenes. Really. Yes,
we also with the producers making the same to say
we made it nice. I love that, you know. I
(01:11):
am so related to that phrase. Now. I was actually
in London about a month ago and I thought, Okay,
I'm gonna have a little bit of rest from the
whole Housewives thing. I literally was walking out of my
hotel and someone a carwood by and said, my good nice.
I was like, oh my god, love it. Well. You
get a quick, wit stending demeanor. You can wear your
heart your your sleeve, which really makes you a fantastic
(01:31):
guest on the show. And I know today will have
a good time no matter what you tell the truth.
She's opening up here today about her life off screen
and what's given her strength and courage to some of
her darkest days. So most of what we see you
doing is, to me anyway, seems like a lot of fun. Yes,
did you ever? Did you ever anticipate what would happen
when you shared all those private moments publicly? No, I
(01:52):
always said. Someone asked me when I first started the show,
do you think the show could ruin your life? I said,
I think you ruin your life. I think people like
to make an excuse and say this from my life,
that my life. We ruin our life. And for me,
the show was an incredible, incredibly therapeutic thing to do.
I was at a point in my life where I
was really lost. All my identities were gone. I wasn't
(02:15):
a mother, I wasn't a white I mean I was
a mother, but my daughter had grown up and moved
went to college, my husband passed. I was in my fifties,
and I'm like, this is it and I couldn't really
understand why, what, when? How this happened. So when I
went on the show, it was an incredible way to
express what I've been through, what I'm going through, and
(02:36):
what I kind of hope for my life now. And
it really the thing that was so great is I
wasn't a wife or a mother or this or that.
I was just Thrinda. I got to be my own
identity and developed my own identity for the first time
and probably thirty five years. How did you get picked?
I am always curious to that process. I here's why
I'm asking my sister in law, who's a complete character
(02:58):
and is a debay of my existence. She tortures me
all the things my wife wants to say to me,
she actually says to me, boy I like And I
always kid her that I would nominate her to be
a housewife of wherever she happen? Where is she? We're
always looking she lives in Delaware. Housewives of Wilmington's. Yeah,
but there's a whole bunch down there. I grew up
in the town Delaware, Delaware by the way, mostly only
(03:20):
know it because you drive through it. It's beautiful, beautiful,
And I have a very good friend that lives there
because she lives actually in Artmore, but they have their
home in Delaware, so I go visit all the time.
I love it, and Delaware people are very sort of good,
good solid people, and so I'm always wondering what if
I was casting, i would find someone like her. But
(03:41):
you guys are all so different from each other. The
brilliant folks at Brable must have some magical way of
telling who's gonna be the right match. Well, you have
to remember, and not a lot of people know this,
but there's a lot of cameo appearances of me throughout
the years because I know, I know the girls, I've
known them. We all kind of were on the Upper Side,
and I think when you are on the Upper East Side,
(04:02):
you just it's like being back in college. We all
kind of do the same things, send our kids the
same schools, go to the same social events. Really, it's
like being on a college campus. So when it started,
it was called Moms of New York. And I'll never
forget it. Um. Ramona Singer started telling me about because
Ramona's daughter went to Sacred Heart, the same school as
my daughters, this new Schelle and the Benefits show, and
(04:23):
it's gonna be about women that they follow around in
New York and they go to cocktail parties and they
do kids. I'm like, that sounds so ridiculous. I mean,
who would do who would be interested in that? And
I had just gotten divorced and I just didn't and
hand it was in private school, and she had had
enough change that I was sort of I was like, no,
this is not the right time. And but I would
(04:46):
go to all the events they invite me to, all
the events. I would always kind of be asked, what
you ever do it? No, it's not a good time.
That I married Richard and he was involved with politics
and he was a speechwriter for different people, Hilly Clinton
and Geraldine Farrar and all these people, and that wasn't right.
And then when Richard passed, Ramona came and said, try
it for a season. You know, we want to have
(05:06):
you on. So I thought, you know what, I'm gonna
do this. I'm gonna throw my hat in the wind
if it doesn't work. I'll talk about it when I'm
in the nursing home that season and the housewives to
remember that. But I've got to tell you something. The
minute I got on the show, I swear to God
this is true. That camera went on, I looked at
the camera, the camera looked at me. I was like,
(05:28):
I like this, I and I just I think it
also was very helpful because I knew the girls already.
I had history, we have similar lives. So how how
real is it? A hundred percent? I swear to you fight.
I mean, most people don't stay friendly after some of
these fights. Well, listen, you are. Most people don't spend
(05:50):
five days a week for a five month period ten
hours a day either, So you know, it's like it
truly is like being I actually made a big mistake
to when my producers right before the show ended, I said,
when's the semester start next year? He goes semester because
you kind of you have to put on that hat.
You have to understand you're an ensemble group and you
(06:10):
have to get in it. And we know we're good,
we're professional, we know what we're doing. People like it,
and people love the thing that I love about the audience.
It's very forgiving. They're forgiving. You put something out there.
It's rough, but it then opens up all these wonderful
avenues to open up discussions about difficult things. There's lots
(06:32):
more will be come back. You mentioned Richard losing him.
It's terrible. You've commented that the show helped you cope
with those painful moments. How so because um, you know
(06:54):
I could. I was never a person. I grew up
in a very ethnic family, very stoic, Catholic, you know,
keep it moving, don't more and keep running. And it
was really difficult, and I think in a weird way,
dr Os. The hardest part was the process of him dying,
and I did not really take on how much that
(07:15):
physically and emotionally had affected me. So when they die,
it's sort of like, wait a second, I'm sick now,
because you sort of are sick, someone always said. Someone
said to me, when you have someone dying in your family,
you get sick as well. The whole family sick. So
we came out of it, and you know, Hannah wasn't
didn't handle it well. I didn't handle it well, but
Hannah was smart. She threw herself into therapy. She talked
(07:38):
about it, fragile age, just turning eighteen, terrible. We had
to do his college applications, and as I see you
and I had normalized that. So when I stepped away
from it and looked at the past year and a half,
I'm like, this was not normal and I wasn't dealing
with it in a way that I should have. I
should have spoken to someone, I should have talked about
it more, but I did that old sort of Catholic
(07:59):
ethnic they everything's fine, I'm good, it's no problem, I'm
gonna be fine. Oh well it happened. Why I'm happy.
Actually died. He was really sick. That wasn't you know
what I mean? All these things, and when I got
on the show and really started to talk about it,
it became my therapy and I was like it was
I was like, yeah, that was painful. Yeah he died, Yes,
(08:20):
which is terrible. It's a very painful way to go
because you're ugly. Yeah, exactly blowed up. You liarly get
ticked because when you know what people don't you know,
we all have sort of a romantic idea about dying,
and your head you gasped something really profound and go
and you're the right and people are angry, and you're angry,
so you wanted to be you want to present it
(08:41):
as the way you see it on movies, and and
it's not. No one was happy at the end. I
wasn't happy, I think at one point, and I felt
so terrible about this and I had to forgive myself.
I said to my mother, I just I feel terrible.
I I prayed and prayed that I'm gonna get At
one point, I was like, someone's got to go here
because I can't take this anymore. But I was tired.
(09:01):
You know, when you are going through that process, especially
the last three months, where every day is the day
you eat it, drink it, sleep it. You don't know
when to leave the hospital. You know when you're away
from the hospital you want to do is get back
to the hospital, and there is zero focus on you
or what else is going on in the world. You
get left behind. Yes, So what was the best advice?
(09:21):
And that's something I wanted to talk about, is I
really I say this all the time. The advocacy thing.
When you're an advocate for someone that's dying and you
become the conservator, you have to surround yourself with a
lot of good people. And I've got to say the nurses.
I mean, the doctors were great, but the nurses at
New York Presbyterian, they were like angels. I work with them,
(09:42):
they trained me, and nurses make much more of the
decision processes in the operating room. I don't close the
chest of an of an open art surgeon until the
nurses think it's dry enough to close, because they see
it all. I only see my cases. I don't know
how everybody else manages the problems. The nurses that they're able.
I said to one fellow that I actually stayed in
(10:04):
touch with. I said, how do you every day have such,
you know, such compassion when he's like that? Because they do.
They treated Richard, in my mind, like he was the
only one there. And then I would catch the sight
of them in a side whom I'm like, hey, you're
treating that person a little too nice? What about my man, Richard?
Did you know what I mean? They're very good, and
(10:24):
they reassure you and they walk you through, and they
really are on the journey with you. So I called
them my angels. I missed them, Actually, I missed them
I always have patience go back the ones that survived,
because many don't. But most do. And I haven't go
back and talk to the nurses in the I see
you and those critical carriers because they don't see the
success stories. Yes, I've gone back several times. Good for you.
(10:47):
What's the best advice you got as you were recovering
from Richard's loss? You know, my mother gave me the
best advice. It makes me want to cry, But my mother,
who is such an incredible rock in my life, has
handled it. Sorry, And you know, my mother handles all
things beautifully, you know, life, death, birth, baptisms. It's a
(11:09):
process and she's just so wonderful. She said to me
at one point when I was what am I gonna do?
How am I gonna do this? I can't believe it's happened. Why? Why? Why?
She said, you know, during a medley, let me ask
you a question if your full name? Of course, yeah,
of course, she said. Listen, let me ask you a question.
If this person came into your life eight years ago
and said, Heydrenda, I'm gonna come into your life. I'm
(11:31):
gonna love you, cherish you, cherish your daughter, or draw
you you're gonna have a greade eight years. But then
I gotta go, wo'd you take them? I said, of course, Mom,
She goes, well, that's what you got. Everything in life
has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It may
not be the timing you want, but everything so you
need to be appreciative of that and you need to
move on and be thankful. And it really was such
(11:53):
a telling moment. I was like, she's right. I mean
a little bit of get up and go, you know,
stop college. He's wonderful. She's wonderful. She's my rock and
my mother, who I always said. It was such a beautiful.
It is funny you take away so many wonderful things
when you are strangely given the blessing of watching someone
(12:15):
leave this world. I know that sounds odd to say,
but it brought a close closest to me again with
my mother that I may not have had if this
hadn't happened, Because all of a sudden, my mother was
my mom again. I had hadn't really had that kind
of relationship with her for thirty years. I was growing up,
I was living in London, I'm trying to be a
social well, all this kind of stuff, and all of
a sudden, I was like, Mom, I need you to
(12:36):
sleep in my bed with me. I need that. And
she would do it as and she get up in
the morning and make me breakfast, and it just brought
this incredible sense of who I am, the foundation I
came from, and my strength you are during to Sincla
at the end of the day, she said to me
one day, all these other names you've collected over the years,
but you're still during to Sincla, I'm like, I am, Mom,
(12:58):
what a great insight. You know. I had a patience
to patients at one point in my career. They were
both about fifty. They both needed open heart surgery. The
first father came in. He was very depressed, which is
normal because you're gonna have open heart surgery. And I
was going through all the risks and the like. He
says at this interrupted me and said, Doc, doesn't really matter,
just to what you need to do. It doesn't matter
if I make it or not. So what did a
(13:20):
whole second, We're not gonna operate if it doesn't matter
to you. If you live. It's one thing to be
down on what's going on, but you need to be
passionate about surviving. And then his wife started crying, which
is always a bad sign, so I figured there's something
deeper here. And then she shared that their son, who
was fifteen years old, had been murdered and they they
were the Saint Patty's Day parade who was a mistaken identity,
and he got killed by a gang of folks terrible,
(13:41):
so they were down and the probably may have caused
him his heart props anyway, So I don't know what
to tell you. I can't and deal with this, but
the message will come to me eventually. Just let's give
a little hiatus here. Later that day, another guy comes
in sneeze heart surgery. He's by himself, and I said, okay,
here's the risk. He's about stop. I'm gonna make get
I gotta lift. I said, wow, I mean everyone says that,
(14:02):
but why do you have to live? He said, I've
got a very disabled young son. He's fifteen, he's uh,
you know, he's developmentally delayed. So I can't when he
talked to him, I gotta change his diapers. My wife's
uh not in the picture. I've got to survive because
without uh, without me, he can't survive. And I thought
about that, and I realized that this and went to
(14:23):
head to the first guy, which was you had fifteen
years of bliss with your son, as horrible as it
was as you lost him. To your mother's point, you
still got to have a catch with them, planets, future
dream with him. The second father never had any of that,
yet he founds value in having the relationship that he
does have, limited as it is, and he found and
he's going to make it a reason to survive. You've
(14:45):
got to do the same thing that that's correct, and
you have to, you know, we want to believe that
life is going to be simple and straightforward. And and
one thing that I've really learned through this process, all
the different changes, is I no longer to write my
final chapter. I'm always thinking, oh what this? I mean?
Who would have thought it? I thought I was going
to be happily married to Richard, living in the barre
(15:07):
is sort of flying back and forth to London, beautiful
that you know. I had it all planned out and
it looked pretty damn good, and then all of a sudden, boom,
oh no, no, we're changing the chapter. So I try
to live in my present chapter of my life. I
try to just live. In this chapter more questions after
the break, speaking of chapters of their lives, I mean,
(15:36):
as you come about a couple of your your Coco stars. Okay,
so you knew this question was coming. But she had
as part of her settlement. She was a prompt parole
and there's something she had to concede to, which including
Beth breath of lash your tests, which is smart theme.
So she's failed that. So what advice do you give
to her? What? What? What? What do you What goes
(15:58):
through your mind when you see that happen to someone
you care deeply for? Yeah, I find it very difficult
to talk about this because I just feel like it's
not my place. But you know, we I don't. I'm
always sort of on pins and needles when it comes
to talking about anyone's recovery because they are the only
ones to understand the journey. And I just think it's difficult.
(16:20):
It's difficult, and it's strangely, you know, I think everybody
has some sort of scarlet letters. Some people get caught out,
some people don't, but we all. You know, It's made
me self examine a little bit and take a look
at my life and say, you know, am I doing
these things right? You know, because I'm not belittling anything.
I'm just saying we have all made mistakes, and you know,
(16:42):
we can all get caught in. You know, there's been
those mornings I've woken up and said, oh my god,
they got and that's never gonna happen again. You know,
I've not done anything that bad, but you know what
I mean, and I just feel, you know, this has
been a very difficult journey, and to have to go
back and go through all this and then have the
added uh the did They've added all kinds of additional
(17:02):
things to her probation. You know, I haven't really spoken
to her that much. What do you want her to
hear when you do speak to her? Which is gonna happen?
I have spoken to it. I've said, you know, you're
gonna get through this, stay strong, day by day, day
by day, you know, to tell you the truth, My
real advice to her was please go quiet. If I
(17:23):
were in the same position, I would literally put on
house coat, go to the bertures and hide until my
approbation was over. And the fact that she can do
all these cabarets and be out there and do all
this stuff is a credit to her, because I wouldn't.
I would go completely silent, I turned off my phone,
and whatever the date was, I would re emergeack. You know,
(17:49):
I think therapy for her. I suspect that being alone
for a lot of people is the most painful thing
you can prescribe for them. I shaw, you see it
in patience. You know. I love to be a lot.
Do you know that's a little fun fact about the
rodomadally that no one knows. I love my own company
to the point where I can get a little odd. Well,
(18:09):
because I really love my company, taking to the point
where I'm in my house, I'm like, this is so
much fun. Oh, I could be busy in a paper box.
I'm just one of those people, you know. I wake
up busy. That's what my mother says, I wake up busy.
I just you know, maybe it's because I spent so
much of my life devoting myself to others. And you know,
(18:32):
um Oprah said something the other day and one of
the she was doing a thing for one of the
books that was coming out, and she said, get rid
of the need to please. And I'm like, that's me, Oprah.
And the more you need to please, the more people
will take, and the more they take, the more you
want to please, and it becomes this vicious circle. And
I have a tendency to do that. So for me,
(18:54):
it's so nice just to please myself. I literally make
myself breakfast side La and you know it's watch TV
in the living room, which I find very luxurious. It
is the beer. I have a good friend. There's a
physician also, and when they know I tak care remember
his family, and he was trying to thank me, and
I said, I don't know you do that. He was no, No, listen,
(19:16):
you can't always give. You actually have to take, because
if you don't take, people can't give. And so you're
taking from me, you're taking away people's opportunity to do good,
which actually hurts them. So as crazy as it seems
to the right amount, taking from others, allowing them to
give to you is a gift. The guy who created
the Habitat for Humanity, he passed away, but I had
(19:37):
him when I was back on his host in the
Oprah Radio show. I had him on and he said,
everybody he've ever built a house for, he give a
little wooden piggy bank too, so they can put money
in it and then donate. And I said, well, I
don't understand these people are that's the two that's why
you're building them a house. Right, If they had money,
they build, they build their own house. So while you
asked them to give, he said, because I don't want
(19:58):
to ever take away their opportunity to help other because
I'm taking away their humanity. And he said, everyone always
put money cree pennies, and that wouldnen peeback. We should
be the middle of a living room to remind them
that they had the opportunity to pass it on to others.
That's right. You give a man a house or give
a man a hammer. Yes, all right. Last question Bethiny Frankel,
who I've gotten to a door love? Yes, so she had.
(20:19):
You know, she's had some loss in her life. And
when when when dead has passed, she grieved. People judge
her grieving the judge Ethaniel explain it, defender. I feel
very strongly about that, um because grieving is especially grieving
and a younger person. I had a situation at Elio's
(20:39):
one night when I met a woman at the bar.
She's probably in her eighties and Richardly just passed. And
I said, oh my god, I'm a widow too. She said,
oh no, darling, you're not a widow. A widow was
for old people. What you're going through is just sad
and there's not really Emanuel. People don't know how to
handle grief. They don't know how to approach it. You
don't know how to approach it. And all these rules
(20:59):
and like I called the Queen Victoria rules and regulations
wearing black that did be crying all the time. It
doesn't work. You have to you have to do as
I said. I think I said it to Bethany in
an episode, or I said it to someone. You gotta
do whatever it takes to get you through this time.
If and and no judgment, because they're gone, not sort
(21:22):
of gone, not kind of gone, they're not even they
don't even care anymore. They're gone. So and I can
guarantee you one thing. Richard Medley would want nothing more
than for me. He said it to me before he did.
He said, doesten do me a favor. Oh he used
the Queen Victoria's thing. Said, don't do that Queen Victoria
thing where you sit around morning. You've done all your
morning here I'm dead. I'm not going to care anymore.
(21:45):
And we said our contract is over. We we did
Richard Reporters sickness and helped to death to spark. Our
contract is ending, he said. And it really sat with me.
And when people passed. I remember someone once past judgment
on me about something. Oh I was dating John, and
they said, well, would just say a little un happy that?
(22:05):
You know? I said, really, because where are you right now?
You're with your family in the Hampton's, you have your
husband with you. I'm alone. So unless you want to
pack up and come and live in my house with
me and shepherd me through this period of my time,
I don't think you have any right to say that
I'm happy. I'm doing the best I can with what
I've got, and I can clearly say I'm happy. Does
(22:28):
that bother you? It almost bothers people for you to
be happy after someone dies, I swear, which is ironic
because in so many societies humanity has always have to
deal with it. But in many societies there's a celebration
around the loss so people can move on. Yeah, well
that's right. To make it nice, you got to keep moving.
And Bethley deserves to be happy. She's a young, beautiful woman,
(22:51):
she's got a beautiful daughter. Life is to be had,
Go get it, and I guarantee deists would say, please
do it. Your legacy years from that one shows down.
What's philosopher some Yeah, God, bless you, thank you, Dr Oz.
I love seeing. One of my happiest days was in
(23:11):
my early days when I first started this show and
they said you're going to be on Doctors. I called
my mother, Oh, it's really happening on doctor Oz. I
was so nervous. Well, I've adored have you on every
every single time. By the way, make it nice, perfect
name for the new radio show. Congratulations checking out everybody. Yes,
Radio Andy Wednesday Tuesdays, Tuesdays now Tuesdays now Tuesday took
(23:34):
over Andy's show for two weeks. That's fine, it's perfect
Radio Indy
She said, listen, let me ask you a question. If
this person came into your life eight years ago and said, Hey, Dorenda,
I'm gonna come into your life. I'm gonna love you,
cherish you, cherish your daughter or draw you. You're gonna
have a great eight years. But then I gotta go,
what'd you take them? I said? Of course, she goes,
well that's what she got. Everything in life has a beginning,
a middle, and an end. It may not be the
(00:21):
timing you want, but everything so you need to be
appreciative of that and you need to move on and
be thankful. Hi. I'm Dr Oz and this is the
(00:48):
Doctor Oz podcast during the Medley Stars and the hit
reality show The Real Housewives of New York City, and
recently announced her brand new series XM radio show. Yeah,
maybe I love what you say that. You know that
became I kind of get our show behind the scenes. Really. Yes,
we also with the producers making the same to say
we made it nice. I love that, you know. I
(01:11):
am so related to that phrase. Now. I was actually
in London about a month ago and I thought, Okay,
I'm gonna have a little bit of rest from the
whole Housewives thing. I literally was walking out of my
hotel and someone a carwood by and said, my good nice.
I was like, oh my god, love it. Well. You
get a quick, wit stending demeanor. You can wear your
heart your your sleeve, which really makes you a fantastic
(01:31):
guest on the show. And I know today will have
a good time no matter what you tell the truth.
She's opening up here today about her life off screen
and what's given her strength and courage to some of
her darkest days. So most of what we see you
doing is, to me anyway, seems like a lot of fun. Yes,
did you ever? Did you ever anticipate what would happen
when you shared all those private moments publicly? No, I
(01:52):
always said. Someone asked me when I first started the show,
do you think the show could ruin your life? I said,
I think you ruin your life. I think people like
to make an excuse and say this from my life,
that my life. We ruin our life. And for me,
the show was an incredible, incredibly therapeutic thing to do.
I was at a point in my life where I
was really lost. All my identities were gone. I wasn't
(02:15):
a mother, I wasn't a white I mean I was
a mother, but my daughter had grown up and moved
went to college, my husband passed. I was in my fifties,
and I'm like, this is it and I couldn't really
understand why, what, when? How this happened. So when I
went on the show, it was an incredible way to
express what I've been through, what I'm going through, and
(02:36):
what I kind of hope for my life now. And
it really the thing that was so great is I
wasn't a wife or a mother or this or that.
I was just Thrinda. I got to be my own
identity and developed my own identity for the first time
and probably thirty five years. How did you get picked?
I am always curious to that process. I here's why
I'm asking my sister in law, who's a complete character
(02:58):
and is a debay of my existence. She tortures me
all the things my wife wants to say to me,
she actually says to me, boy I like And I
always kid her that I would nominate her to be
a housewife of wherever she happen? Where is she? We're
always looking she lives in Delaware. Housewives of Wilmington's. Yeah,
but there's a whole bunch down there. I grew up
in the town Delaware, Delaware by the way, mostly only
(03:20):
know it because you drive through it. It's beautiful, beautiful,
And I have a very good friend that lives there
because she lives actually in Artmore, but they have their
home in Delaware, so I go visit all the time.
I love it, and Delaware people are very sort of good,
good solid people, and so I'm always wondering what if
I was casting, i would find someone like her. But
(03:41):
you guys are all so different from each other. The
brilliant folks at Brable must have some magical way of
telling who's gonna be the right match. Well, you have
to remember, and not a lot of people know this,
but there's a lot of cameo appearances of me throughout
the years because I know, I know the girls, I've
known them. We all kind of were on the Upper Side,
and I think when you are on the Upper East Side,
(04:02):
you just it's like being back in college. We all
kind of do the same things, send our kids the
same schools, go to the same social events. Really, it's
like being on a college campus. So when it started,
it was called Moms of New York. And I'll never
forget it. Um. Ramona Singer started telling me about because
Ramona's daughter went to Sacred Heart, the same school as
my daughters, this new Schelle and the Benefits show, and
(04:23):
it's gonna be about women that they follow around in
New York and they go to cocktail parties and they
do kids. I'm like, that sounds so ridiculous. I mean,
who would do who would be interested in that? And
I had just gotten divorced and I just didn't and
hand it was in private school, and she had had
enough change that I was sort of I was like, no,
this is not the right time. And but I would
(04:46):
go to all the events they invite me to, all
the events. I would always kind of be asked, what
you ever do it? No, it's not a good time.
That I married Richard and he was involved with politics
and he was a speechwriter for different people, Hilly Clinton
and Geraldine Farrar and all these people, and that wasn't right.
And then when Richard passed, Ramona came and said, try
it for a season. You know, we want to have
(05:06):
you on. So I thought, you know what, I'm gonna
do this. I'm gonna throw my hat in the wind
if it doesn't work. I'll talk about it when I'm
in the nursing home that season and the housewives to
remember that. But I've got to tell you something. The
minute I got on the show, I swear to God
this is true. That camera went on, I looked at
the camera, the camera looked at me. I was like,
(05:28):
I like this, I and I just I think it
also was very helpful because I knew the girls already.
I had history, we have similar lives. So how how
real is it? A hundred percent? I swear to you fight.
I mean, most people don't stay friendly after some of
these fights. Well, listen, you are. Most people don't spend
(05:50):
five days a week for a five month period ten
hours a day either, So you know, it's like it
truly is like being I actually made a big mistake
to when my producers right before the show ended, I said,
when's the semester start next year? He goes semester because
you kind of you have to put on that hat.
You have to understand you're an ensemble group and you
(06:10):
have to get in it. And we know we're good,
we're professional, we know what we're doing. People like it,
and people love the thing that I love about the audience.
It's very forgiving. They're forgiving. You put something out there.
It's rough, but it then opens up all these wonderful
avenues to open up discussions about difficult things. There's lots
(06:32):
more will be come back. You mentioned Richard losing him.
It's terrible. You've commented that the show helped you cope
with those painful moments. How so because um, you know
(06:54):
I could. I was never a person. I grew up
in a very ethnic family, very stoic, Catholic, you know,
keep it moving, don't more and keep running. And it
was really difficult, and I think in a weird way,
dr Os. The hardest part was the process of him dying,
and I did not really take on how much that
(07:15):
physically and emotionally had affected me. So when they die,
it's sort of like, wait a second, I'm sick now,
because you sort of are sick, someone always said. Someone
said to me, when you have someone dying in your family,
you get sick as well. The whole family sick. So
we came out of it, and you know, Hannah wasn't
didn't handle it well. I didn't handle it well, but
Hannah was smart. She threw herself into therapy. She talked
(07:38):
about it, fragile age, just turning eighteen, terrible. We had
to do his college applications, and as I see you
and I had normalized that. So when I stepped away
from it and looked at the past year and a half,
I'm like, this was not normal and I wasn't dealing
with it in a way that I should have. I
should have spoken to someone, I should have talked about
it more, but I did that old sort of Catholic
(07:59):
ethnic they everything's fine, I'm good, it's no problem, I'm
gonna be fine. Oh well it happened. Why I'm happy.
Actually died. He was really sick. That wasn't you know
what I mean? All these things, and when I got
on the show and really started to talk about it,
it became my therapy and I was like it was
I was like, yeah, that was painful. Yeah he died, Yes,
(08:20):
which is terrible. It's a very painful way to go
because you're ugly. Yeah, exactly blowed up. You liarly get
ticked because when you know what people don't you know,
we all have sort of a romantic idea about dying,
and your head you gasped something really profound and go
and you're the right and people are angry, and you're angry,
so you wanted to be you want to present it
(08:41):
as the way you see it on movies, and and
it's not. No one was happy at the end. I
wasn't happy, I think at one point, and I felt
so terrible about this and I had to forgive myself.
I said to my mother, I just I feel terrible.
I I prayed and prayed that I'm gonna get At
one point, I was like, someone's got to go here
because I can't take this anymore. But I was tired.
(09:01):
You know, when you are going through that process, especially
the last three months, where every day is the day
you eat it, drink it, sleep it. You don't know
when to leave the hospital. You know when you're away
from the hospital you want to do is get back
to the hospital, and there is zero focus on you
or what else is going on in the world. You
get left behind. Yes, So what was the best advice?
(09:21):
And that's something I wanted to talk about, is I
really I say this all the time. The advocacy thing.
When you're an advocate for someone that's dying and you
become the conservator, you have to surround yourself with a
lot of good people. And I've got to say the nurses.
I mean, the doctors were great, but the nurses at
New York Presbyterian, they were like angels. I work with them,
(09:42):
they trained me, and nurses make much more of the
decision processes in the operating room. I don't close the
chest of an of an open art surgeon until the
nurses think it's dry enough to close, because they see
it all. I only see my cases. I don't know
how everybody else manages the problems. The nurses that they're able.
I said to one fellow that I actually stayed in
(10:04):
touch with. I said, how do you every day have such,
you know, such compassion when he's like that? Because they do.
They treated Richard, in my mind, like he was the
only one there. And then I would catch the sight
of them in a side whom I'm like, hey, you're
treating that person a little too nice? What about my man, Richard?
Did you know what I mean? They're very good, and
(10:24):
they reassure you and they walk you through, and they
really are on the journey with you. So I called
them my angels. I missed them, Actually, I missed them
I always have patience go back the ones that survived,
because many don't. But most do. And I haven't go
back and talk to the nurses in the I see
you and those critical carriers because they don't see the
success stories. Yes, I've gone back several times. Good for you.
(10:47):
What's the best advice you got as you were recovering
from Richard's loss? You know, my mother gave me the
best advice. It makes me want to cry, But my mother,
who is such an incredible rock in my life, has
handled it. Sorry, And you know, my mother handles all
things beautifully, you know, life, death, birth, baptisms. It's a
(11:09):
process and she's just so wonderful. She said to me
at one point when I was what am I gonna do?
How am I gonna do this? I can't believe it's happened. Why? Why? Why?
She said, you know, during a medley, let me ask
you a question if your full name? Of course, yeah,
of course, she said. Listen, let me ask you a question.
If this person came into your life eight years ago
and said, Heydrenda, I'm gonna come into your life. I'm
(11:31):
gonna love you, cherish you, cherish your daughter, or draw
you you're gonna have a greade eight years. But then
I gotta go, wo'd you take them? I said, of course, Mom,
She goes, well, that's what you got. Everything in life
has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It may
not be the timing you want, but everything so you
need to be appreciative of that and you need to
move on and be thankful. And it really was such
(11:53):
a telling moment. I was like, she's right. I mean
a little bit of get up and go, you know,
stop college. He's wonderful. She's wonderful. She's my rock and
my mother, who I always said. It was such a beautiful.
It is funny you take away so many wonderful things
when you are strangely given the blessing of watching someone
(12:15):
leave this world. I know that sounds odd to say,
but it brought a close closest to me again with
my mother that I may not have had if this
hadn't happened, Because all of a sudden, my mother was
my mom again. I had hadn't really had that kind
of relationship with her for thirty years. I was growing up,
I was living in London, I'm trying to be a
social well, all this kind of stuff, and all of
a sudden, I was like, Mom, I need you to
(12:36):
sleep in my bed with me. I need that. And
she would do it as and she get up in
the morning and make me breakfast, and it just brought
this incredible sense of who I am, the foundation I
came from, and my strength you are during to Sincla
at the end of the day, she said to me
one day, all these other names you've collected over the years,
but you're still during to Sincla, I'm like, I am, Mom,
(12:58):
what a great insight. You know. I had a patience
to patients at one point in my career. They were
both about fifty. They both needed open heart surgery. The
first father came in. He was very depressed, which is
normal because you're gonna have open heart surgery. And I
was going through all the risks and the like. He
says at this interrupted me and said, Doc, doesn't really matter,
just to what you need to do. It doesn't matter
if I make it or not. So what did a
(13:20):
whole second, We're not gonna operate if it doesn't matter
to you. If you live. It's one thing to be
down on what's going on, but you need to be
passionate about surviving. And then his wife started crying, which
is always a bad sign, so I figured there's something
deeper here. And then she shared that their son, who
was fifteen years old, had been murdered and they they
were the Saint Patty's Day parade who was a mistaken identity,
and he got killed by a gang of folks terrible,
(13:41):
so they were down and the probably may have caused
him his heart props anyway, So I don't know what
to tell you. I can't and deal with this, but
the message will come to me eventually. Just let's give
a little hiatus here. Later that day, another guy comes
in sneeze heart surgery. He's by himself, and I said, okay,
here's the risk. He's about stop. I'm gonna make get
I gotta lift. I said, wow, I mean everyone says that,
(14:02):
but why do you have to live? He said, I've
got a very disabled young son. He's fifteen, he's uh,
you know, he's developmentally delayed. So I can't when he
talked to him, I gotta change his diapers. My wife's
uh not in the picture. I've got to survive because
without uh, without me, he can't survive. And I thought
about that, and I realized that this and went to
(14:23):
head to the first guy, which was you had fifteen
years of bliss with your son, as horrible as it
was as you lost him. To your mother's point, you
still got to have a catch with them, planets, future
dream with him. The second father never had any of that,
yet he founds value in having the relationship that he
does have, limited as it is, and he found and
he's going to make it a reason to survive. You've
(14:45):
got to do the same thing that that's correct, and
you have to, you know, we want to believe that
life is going to be simple and straightforward. And and
one thing that I've really learned through this process, all
the different changes, is I no longer to write my
final chapter. I'm always thinking, oh what this? I mean?
Who would have thought it? I thought I was going
to be happily married to Richard, living in the barre
(15:07):
is sort of flying back and forth to London, beautiful
that you know. I had it all planned out and
it looked pretty damn good, and then all of a sudden, boom,
oh no, no, we're changing the chapter. So I try
to live in my present chapter of my life. I
try to just live. In this chapter more questions after
the break, speaking of chapters of their lives, I mean,
(15:36):
as you come about a couple of your your Coco stars. Okay,
so you knew this question was coming. But she had
as part of her settlement. She was a prompt parole
and there's something she had to concede to, which including
Beth breath of lash your tests, which is smart theme.
So she's failed that. So what advice do you give
to her? What? What? What? What do you What goes
(15:58):
through your mind when you see that happen to someone
you care deeply for? Yeah, I find it very difficult
to talk about this because I just feel like it's
not my place. But you know, we I don't. I'm
always sort of on pins and needles when it comes
to talking about anyone's recovery because they are the only
ones to understand the journey. And I just think it's difficult.
(16:20):
It's difficult, and it's strangely, you know, I think everybody
has some sort of scarlet letters. Some people get caught out,
some people don't, but we all. You know, It's made
me self examine a little bit and take a look
at my life and say, you know, am I doing
these things right? You know, because I'm not belittling anything.
I'm just saying we have all made mistakes, and you know,
(16:42):
we can all get caught in. You know, there's been
those mornings I've woken up and said, oh my god,
they got and that's never gonna happen again. You know,
I've not done anything that bad, but you know what
I mean, and I just feel, you know, this has
been a very difficult journey, and to have to go
back and go through all this and then have the
added uh the did They've added all kinds of additional
(17:02):
things to her probation. You know, I haven't really spoken
to her that much. What do you want her to
hear when you do speak to her? Which is gonna happen?
I have spoken to it. I've said, you know, you're
gonna get through this, stay strong, day by day, day
by day, you know, to tell you the truth, My
real advice to her was please go quiet. If I
(17:23):
were in the same position, I would literally put on
house coat, go to the bertures and hide until my
approbation was over. And the fact that she can do
all these cabarets and be out there and do all
this stuff is a credit to her, because I wouldn't.
I would go completely silent, I turned off my phone,
and whatever the date was, I would re emergeack. You know,
(17:49):
I think therapy for her. I suspect that being alone
for a lot of people is the most painful thing
you can prescribe for them. I shaw, you see it
in patience. You know. I love to be a lot.
Do you know that's a little fun fact about the
rodomadally that no one knows. I love my own company
to the point where I can get a little odd. Well,
(18:09):
because I really love my company, taking to the point
where I'm in my house, I'm like, this is so
much fun. Oh, I could be busy in a paper box.
I'm just one of those people, you know. I wake
up busy. That's what my mother says, I wake up busy.
I just you know, maybe it's because I spent so
much of my life devoting myself to others. And you know,
(18:32):
um Oprah said something the other day and one of
the she was doing a thing for one of the
books that was coming out, and she said, get rid
of the need to please. And I'm like, that's me, Oprah.
And the more you need to please, the more people
will take, and the more they take, the more you
want to please, and it becomes this vicious circle. And
I have a tendency to do that. So for me,
(18:54):
it's so nice just to please myself. I literally make
myself breakfast side La and you know it's watch TV
in the living room, which I find very luxurious. It
is the beer. I have a good friend. There's a
physician also, and when they know I tak care remember
his family, and he was trying to thank me, and
I said, I don't know you do that. He was no, No, listen,
(19:16):
you can't always give. You actually have to take, because
if you don't take, people can't give. And so you're
taking from me, you're taking away people's opportunity to do good,
which actually hurts them. So as crazy as it seems
to the right amount, taking from others, allowing them to
give to you is a gift. The guy who created
the Habitat for Humanity, he passed away, but I had
(19:37):
him when I was back on his host in the
Oprah Radio show. I had him on and he said,
everybody he've ever built a house for, he give a
little wooden piggy bank too, so they can put money
in it and then donate. And I said, well, I
don't understand these people are that's the two that's why
you're building them a house. Right, If they had money,
they build, they build their own house. So while you
asked them to give, he said, because I don't want
(19:58):
to ever take away their opportunity to help other because
I'm taking away their humanity. And he said, everyone always
put money cree pennies, and that wouldnen peeback. We should
be the middle of a living room to remind them
that they had the opportunity to pass it on to others.
That's right. You give a man a house or give
a man a hammer. Yes, all right. Last question Bethiny Frankel,
who I've gotten to a door love? Yes, so she had.
(20:19):
You know, she's had some loss in her life. And
when when when dead has passed, she grieved. People judge
her grieving the judge Ethaniel explain it, defender. I feel
very strongly about that, um because grieving is especially grieving
and a younger person. I had a situation at Elio's
(20:39):
one night when I met a woman at the bar.
She's probably in her eighties and Richardly just passed. And
I said, oh my god, I'm a widow too. She said,
oh no, darling, you're not a widow. A widow was
for old people. What you're going through is just sad
and there's not really Emanuel. People don't know how to
handle grief. They don't know how to approach it. You
don't know how to approach it. And all these rules
(20:59):
and like I called the Queen Victoria rules and regulations
wearing black that did be crying all the time. It
doesn't work. You have to you have to do as
I said. I think I said it to Bethany in
an episode, or I said it to someone. You gotta
do whatever it takes to get you through this time.
If and and no judgment, because they're gone, not sort
(21:22):
of gone, not kind of gone, they're not even they
don't even care anymore. They're gone. So and I can
guarantee you one thing. Richard Medley would want nothing more
than for me. He said it to me before he did.
He said, doesten do me a favor. Oh he used
the Queen Victoria's thing. Said, don't do that Queen Victoria
thing where you sit around morning. You've done all your
morning here I'm dead. I'm not going to care anymore.
(21:45):
And we said our contract is over. We we did
Richard Reporters sickness and helped to death to spark. Our
contract is ending, he said. And it really sat with me.
And when people passed. I remember someone once past judgment
on me about something. Oh I was dating John, and
they said, well, would just say a little un happy that?
(22:05):
You know? I said, really, because where are you right now?
You're with your family in the Hampton's, you have your
husband with you. I'm alone. So unless you want to
pack up and come and live in my house with
me and shepherd me through this period of my time,
I don't think you have any right to say that
I'm happy. I'm doing the best I can with what
I've got, and I can clearly say I'm happy. Does
(22:28):
that bother you? It almost bothers people for you to
be happy after someone dies, I swear, which is ironic
because in so many societies humanity has always have to
deal with it. But in many societies there's a celebration
around the loss so people can move on. Yeah, well
that's right. To make it nice, you got to keep moving.
And Bethley deserves to be happy. She's a young, beautiful woman,
(22:51):
she's got a beautiful daughter. Life is to be had,
Go get it, and I guarantee deists would say, please
do it. Your legacy years from that one shows down.
What's philosopher some Yeah, God, bless you, thank you, Dr Oz.
I love seeing. One of my happiest days was in
(23:11):
my early days when I first started this show and
they said you're going to be on Doctors. I called
my mother, Oh, it's really happening on doctor Oz. I
was so nervous. Well, I've adored have you on every
every single time. By the way, make it nice, perfect
name for the new radio show. Congratulations checking out everybody. Yes,
Radio Andy Wednesday Tuesdays, Tuesdays now Tuesdays now Tuesday took
(23:34):
over Andy's show for two weeks. That's fine, it's perfect
Radio Indy
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