This week on GET REAL Podcast... RENEE GRAZIANO!
RENEE is a STAR and has been a HUSTLER from a very young age! She is known for her roles in her family’s reality TV program, “Mob Wives,” and for being the author of her NOVEL, “Playing with Fire”.
IN THIS EPISODE, we talk:
• Growing up in a Bonanno crime family
• The magic of WOMEN
• The role her FATHER played in her life and the LESSONS he taught her
• Her goal of saving OTHERS’ lives
• Finding who RENEE is, regardless of associative titles
You can order a copy of Renee’s book, “Playing with Fire: A Novel,” HERE!
Listen to RENEE GRAZIANO on GET REAL Podcast...NOW!
Connect with RENEE:
Instagram
Cameo
TikTok
Facebook
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Carlone. She's a queen of talking song. You know, she's
getting really not afraid to feel the taxis and so
just let it flow. No one can do we quiet, Carylone,
it is time for Caroline.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I am here with Renee Graziano. Girl.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You are just you've lived a life like you've lived
a life not many people, if anyone else, could ever
uh replicate.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Ah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I think no, it's amazing, Like your life is just
the opportunities that you have had an experience, the people
that you have lived and you know, done life with
the way you have put yourself out there in TV
and as an author and as a reality reality star
and as a mob life which I.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Mean, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You're just so cool and beautiful and yeah, you're a
movie star.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
You just literally you are. You are first star.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I did thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You're a star rede but you're life star. You were
born a star.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I said, I'd like to believe I'm the North Star.
I have to be the biggest. Yeah, you know what,
I think women are.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
In general just stars. I think we're very special humans.
I believe that, uh you know, being that we have
the ability to give life. There has to be something
very special about a woman because God chose us to
give life. So that's all you men that don't appreciate women,
(01:58):
But that came from a woman.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
That's right, Renee man, So talk to me about your life.
Tell me about how Renee got going. What motivates Renee?
Little Renee? What did you love to do when you
were a kid, How did you grow up? How did
you know you were destined to be this star and
have this like amazing phenomenal life.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Tell me how to about going?
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Okay, So as a child, it's funny my my parents say.
My mom always said, I knew you were going.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
To be a star.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
You were dancing on the coffee tables at three. I said, well,
I could have been a strip off dance it on
the coffee tables, which I wish I had some of
their moves every now and then, right, But that that
time you might be a little too rough for me.
At fifty three, however, little Renee was very energetic, a
little too much for the family. I'm very different than
(02:56):
my sister's how so, and that emotionally, I'm emotionally driven,
and in today's world that's not the best thing.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
However, I am me and God made.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
Me me for a reason, which yeah, I'm just starting
to learn about why I am the person I am now.
But as a child, I was like this raw rod,
jumping off everything and couldn't sit still. And I had,
you know, maybe a few issues as a kid that
today they would look at.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
As be like ADHD, like I've had it all. I
have it all. But back then it was just this
hyperactive little kid.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Which which later turned out to be unfortunate for me
because it wasn't looked at as a problem, but it
became you know, having a d D ADHD anxiety and
depression that was there as a young child. They just
you know, it wasn't spoken about when I was born.
So my father is God rest his soul, because I immediately
(04:11):
cry everything and I say that my best friend, I
loved my father.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
What What do you love about your father? What was
his personality? Like?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
What ch'all's relationship?
Speaker 5 (04:22):
Like I am a female version of him, but he's
very you know, my father was the life of the party.
This man would walk in and my father was it
was a short man. He was maybe like I would say,
five eight tops, okay tops, and he would walk in
but his presence was so powerful that and I'm talking
(04:44):
before he became the gentleman in the world. He was
in My father was always that guy, always that guy.
I loved being with my father. We used to go
crabbing on the boat. My father, like I was a
little bit tomboyish. He didn't have any sons. There's three daughters.
(05:04):
So he would take me places with him. And one
of my favorite memories as a young girl was.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
He would take me to this restaurant.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
It's still there today, so on Mulberry Streets called Casabella,
and my uncle Mike owned it. And he wasn't my uncle,
my blood uncle Mike, but he was my uncle Mike,
and I knew that.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
So he would take me.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
And he would sit me up at the bar and
the bartender would watch me and he'd be like, Daddy'll
be back in a little bit.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Just stay right here. And Uncle Mike would say.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Every time you finish a whole pup of cherries, I'll
give you one hundred. So by the time my father
got back, I had five hundred red fingers.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
But I never so.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I was a hustler from a very young age. I'm
just starting I had that mentality. I knew to eat
all the cherries even if my stomach hurt because I
had to get that money.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
So speaking which I'm gonna jot that down. That needs
to go in my book.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Story where it all began.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Yeah, my sisters and I my older sister she's almost
nine years older, and then my younger sisters three and
a half years. So there's a little bit of space
in between the three of us. My older sister obviously,
I tried to like be like her when I was young.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I wanted to do the makeup.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
I wanted to So I grew up a little too fast.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Okay, and I became fair.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And you became fast. Is that what you said?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yes, I did. So.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
I experienced things very young, whether it was sex, drugs,
going out to night clubs. I was sixteen and I
was out there like you know, and you know my
first boyfriend. I was very young. I was like fourteen
and a half. So I was ahead, well not not nowadays.
Those girls are ahead of me nowadays, but back then
(06:56):
I was fast. Again, some thing I didn't know that
was going to affect me later on in my life.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Interesting, I'd love to talk about that because that is
so true because when you are in when you are
a teenager coming into this and you have the opportunity
to experience this at a young age, of course you're
gonna want to if you have that, like that thirst
for curiosity like you do.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
And I am the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You want to know life, You want to be like
you you know you have you just want to like
experience it all and it all seems so exciting, but
it's hard to know.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Of course, you can't know what's.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Gonna be the uh, what's gonna happen because of it
down the road?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Right, So that's another thing which we'll discuss that and
then i'll tell you why that's leading me to my
next project.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
And really I'm sorry to interrupt you one more time,
but and I don't know how to talk about like
the Mob, like I've always thought it was, like you
really shouldn't talk.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
About it because I don't know how like it's a
secret or not.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
I got you said, what what mob got to play?
It's on every now and then I.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Know, Okay, so it was your dad associated with it
or your husband or like how did you get me?
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Okay, first of all, he's my ex husband, and he's
a rat bastard, so we don't even associate with No.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
No, yes, he is not to be spoken of.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
No.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
My father was a boss. My father was According to.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
The newspapers that I read, my father was the constelieri
of the Banana crime family.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
So my father was a boss.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Okay, what's that like, like you to have a boss
as your dad, Like, is he just like the coolest?
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Well, I didn't know. As a young child. You know,
I knew I was different. And I say this all
the time. My girlfriend's fathers worked nine to five and
my father worked five to nine, So I knew there
was a difference.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
We owned trucking companies.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
We had restaurants, but I knew I was different by
the way when I went places, the way people received me.
It was it is money in your pocket. It was
the best tables, it was the best of everything. You'd
walk into a jewelry store and you got you walking
out with jewelry. You're like, wait, I didn't I paid
for that. Oh take it home, tell you father, I
(09:12):
gave it to you walking into furious. So my life
was very glamorous. The only thing glamorous about my life
are the things that I'm talking about the diamonds, the firs,
the houses, the cars.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
That's glamorous. My life has died. The other half of
it is dark, really very dark.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
You're going, you know, you're going to visit your family
members in prison at the age of My father didn't
go away until I was.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Twenty one.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
But uh, six seventeen, my group of guy friends, my
best group of guy friends, they all went to prison.
They all got hit with twenty years. They're twenty. I was, yeah,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I was eighteen.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
They were twenty two and twenty three. Twenty years. They're
getting twenty years sentences, these guys. So there's this story
I was I was at a nightclub and I was
with a friend of mine and a guy comes around
the bar and he goes he's talking, and my friend says,
my friend Teddy says, this is TG's what they called
(10:16):
my father because they called him Tony Graziano.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I like to believe it was tough guy because small
as he was maniac. So the guy says, oh, yeah,
I know your father. You know he's a a captain
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I go.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
My father doesn't drive a boat. My father doesn't feel.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Like I didn't have any clue what the guy was
talking about. And my friend says, I think you should
go home and talk to your father. So I went
home and I said, you know, Dad, what's what's the story?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I was priged, you drive a boat? You tell us?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You know?
Speaker 5 (10:46):
I didn't know, and he was like, well, you don't
drive a boat, honey, but you should sit down. And
while other kids learned about the birds and the bees,
I learned about captains and soldiers and my lifestyle. And
when I mean learned. He never told me anything, but
he told me I was different. He told me that
I was going to be respected very differently. Things would
just come to me and just take them, be quiet
(11:07):
and keep it moving always, you know, be a lady.
My father did say, remain humble at all times. And
that's something else that affected me, because how are you
being humble when you're getting all these gifts and you
don't you know that? That kind of took me to
another level as well. I was like, well, I'm Anthony's daughter.
(11:28):
Excuse me, I'm not waiting on a line, you know so?
And I was told, you don't wait, you don't pay,
you don't wait, you don't nothing.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
You got me in my mob mode. Now my head
love it.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
So childhood was very interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Lead scary, like is it scary growing up? Like is
this stuff happening? I don't only seen movies like, I
literally don't know anything about it.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
I was never afraid because my father never gave us
a reason to be afraid.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
My father was.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Very, very, very well respected. So nobody was coming to
Allay house. Nobody was going to try to ars. And
we were women, so back in the day when women
were still respected. In that world, women are all women
and children. You don't approach, you don't contact nothing. So
it wasn't that way. It was really glamorous. It was
like the beginning of Goodfellas with the It was that
(12:20):
like and that movie I can relate to the most.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Let alone everybody they're talking about the movie. I know,
but who's uncle this and Uncle that?
Speaker 5 (12:27):
It was that life now watching that movie and I
was grown by this time. I started to see the
similarity the negative similarities in my life. Dad's not home,
Dad's always out. You know, there's there's a lifestyle. With
that lifestyle come women situations that you know people are
(12:49):
approaching you and.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
You don't know why now someone wants to date you.
Oh I love you? Do you love me? Or you
will love my father? Do you love me? Or do
you love life?
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Hence my ex husband and it took me many years
to find out that he didn't marry me. For me,
he was very he was twenty three, and of course.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
He just came home from jail. So this to me
is the perfect man.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Now, this mentality, but this is the mentality of that world.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
So it's okay to marry a guy that came out
of jail.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Why is he the first and if he just came
out of jail.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Because where I come from, jail isn't the worst thing
in the world because you come with a set of papers,
a PSI report, which is the pre sentencing investigation, so
you know about that person. So with that being said,
I had a worldwin of a romance. I was engaged
a month and nineteen days after I met him. I'm
(13:50):
going to save all those little details though for my book,
which I'm in the process of putting together.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
I had a very fast paced life.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
I had a very interesting life, but it's a life
that took me down. It took me in a rabbit
It took me down a rabbit hole because I was
always searching for what my father provided. So I wanted
my father provided protection. Yeah, my dad to me, my
(14:20):
father superman and.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Now longer than life. So no one's ever going to
compare to him.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
No, And again, you know, going into my next project,
I'm here to let people know that that's that's a
that's a fairy tale. You're not going to get your dat.
You know, if you look for your dad good in bed,
you're going to get what you're looking for.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Be careful what you look for, because.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
You're not going to get the man that was running
the household. You might get the man that's in the street.
If you have a if you're a daughter and you
come from an abusive household, if you're looking for that, you're.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Going to get that.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
And what women, children, women, men, boys, whatever they don't
know is when you're searching for a partner, you should
be searching for that man that for me, it's a
god sort of thing, like a man that's close to God,
that there's a respect for something greater than ourselves. And
(15:16):
my father could only be my mom's husband, he was
my father. I looked for a man that had that
was going to protect me the man I married I
needed protection from.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
So, yeah, what did your dad to a marriage?
Speaker 5 (15:38):
I never told my father anything, so I was who
because you don't rat. So lessons I learned I had to.
Now I just I just did what I was told.
So you don't have you never tell on nobody, Okay,
so if I tell on him and let me let
me go back. My first boyfriend did something very mean
(16:00):
and he ended up with a situation, maybe a cast
on one or two arms.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
I'm not too sure back then, but I.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Also felt that it was going to be my fault
if something happened to somebody because I'm an mpath I'm
very sensitive. I'm emotionally driven. So I'm afraid and worried
because I know what my father is capable of. I
can read now, I could read those newspapers. I'm not
going to subject somebody to that, especially to when I
(16:30):
say I love because if I love you, I love
you like I ride all the way with you.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Oh you get twenty years, let's go.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
I got you. I'm not stepping out on you. I
got your commisary. I'm there every weekend. Another foolish mistake
but fast forward a little bit to the fact that
I'm a domestic violence survivor, and it was many, many
years of a very sad situation. And again I'm going
(16:59):
to it for the book which I'm writing, but I
will tell you that it's an ugly truth of mine.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
I partied growing up. I used cocaine. I drink my champagne.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
I had my Crystal Rose sixty nine, which these kids
don't even know about. I was never really a drink.
I never liked alcohol. I tend to go to one
drug because it was able to stop everything up here.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
It was able to stop so.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
I would pay my adderal uh yeah, but I never
I didn't party every day. I partied on a Wednesday Saturday,
you know what I mean, and not very much back then.
That did progress in my life because I got some
sort of relief from my brain. Again, that was my
adderall back then, you know. So I have gone through
(17:52):
so many different channels and so many different versions of
me because I never knew who I was supposed.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
To be right And like you said, you couldn't really
tell the truth that there is something going on that
was not serving you or hurting you. It's like you
had to live with this, I guess secret because you're
supposed to protect at all costs, even if that's not
protecting yourself ultimately.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Right. And and that's another lesson that is.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Actually being too loyal that I lost my I was
so loyal to them that I wasn't loyal to me,
right And I have, you know, talked about loyalty. In
order to be loyal, you must be loyal to yourself
before anyone else, because you're selling yourself out.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
For everyone else.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
And there are things I'm these are things I'm just learning.
I would say my dad past four years ago, may
well be four years I'm starting to learn. I would
say maybe three, two or three years. I'm really experiencing everything.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
What do you mean by everything? Okay, of your life?
Like you're living your whole life up until now. If
I'm blocked it.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
It is coming out in such a manner. I'm so
sorry that, uh, it's coming out in such a manner
that it doesn't give me the I'm not getting relief
any longer.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I am Also, are.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
You drowning and you're you feel like you're drowning and
your trauma right now, like is it like so had
you blocked.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Not today? No, no, not, I would say. I went
away February.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
To change my life around, and I went through a
trauma program that traumatized the hell out of me.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
I can actually work.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Uh yeah, because they always say if you're not ready
to kiel the lid, don't. I thought I was ready.
I was not ready. It actually triggered everything inside of me.
So I went away February, March, April, I was home.
I came home May June. In the middle middle of July,
(20:03):
I screwed up for like a couple of days.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I popped Xanax.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
So Xanax became my uh I'll make you laugh though,
so pulled your doc right drug of choice. So I
remember going to the treatment. They were like, what's your doc?
I was like my plastic surgeon or my MZ or
what And they were like what.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
I was like, you asked who my doc was? They
were like no, yeah, So you know what, even using
I was still dumb, you know, but I used.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
I switched to zan x because after I was sexually assaulted.
That's another thing about my ex husband that we're going
to leave over there. But it happened to me as
an adult at the age of thirty seven by a predator.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And did you know this, Yeah, yeah, they had They
put me to you out.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I was in a hospital.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
It's a okay, it's a so it happened. There is
documented proof that it happened. But it ruined me. Now
every mind. All the men in my family are now
in jail. I'm divorced from my ex husband. He wasn't
a rat then, but he was probably always a rat
because he was a punk. Yeah, you could tell I
(21:22):
don't like him. My father was in jail, My brother
in laws were in jail. No, there was only females.
And this is happening to me, and now I don't
know how to I don't know what's happening to me.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I owe deed.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
And I was given medication from the doctors which was
annex at a very high dosage, which was not my fault,
and that was it for me. It was like, oh
my god, I can sleep mind you and I have
severe insomnia since I'm in my early twenties. This is
the lifestyle of waiting for your father or your husband
(21:57):
to get home euros up, yeah, or waiting here if
that phone calls. They got shot they're in jail, Like
that's how I lived. So once I started to self medicate,
I got this relief that I couldn't get anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Totally.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
It was very sad, though.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I cannot blame you for wanting some relief honestly, like,
I want relief from my life, and I haven't lived
through half the like any of the stuff that you
live through.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Humans want relief.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
We need relief from life, like life is hard enough.
And then throw yourself into your situation as a child
from the start.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It's like, of course you want relief. You would be
crazy if you didn't, right, But.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
I shouldn't have seek the relief that I did. It's
just I never went to anybody. I never went and said, hey,
this is happening to me. Oh, I'm sorry I did.
They didn't believe me because my ex husband would tell
them I'm doing things to myself and and God forgive
me for this, but I swear my grandchildren's eyes this
(23:08):
was not self inflicted.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Trust and believe me.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
The broken the shattered coxic bone not self inflicted. That
would be I'd be kind of really be able to
do a lot of different things if I could break
my own coxic bone if I could shatter it.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
But it happened. It happened, and it made it shapes
me in a different kind of way.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
What did it need to what did it do? Oh?
Speaker 4 (23:39):
It mentally destroyed me. It destroyed me.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
It destroyed that really happy little girl, It destroyed her.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
It's okay because God has found a way to give
it back to me in a different way. So for me,
it's really important to save a life. You know, not
one person, but many people help save money. So this
new project, we'll switch here so I could. It's called
My Fairy mob Mother, and it's about me trying to
(24:14):
just help some people. That is people that are like,
hey you, it's about me helping people. It's about me
doing things. And I kept the word.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Mob in there because I'm not knowing I'm nobody's godmother.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
But I could be your mob mother in the sense of,
oh you need that to happen.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Hello, I'm gonna need you to be here, there and there.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I'm still text it, you know, so I could still
call that person and be like, oh wait, I need
a deal on a car or hey, you know, furniture
deal whatever.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
So the show is really it's a give back, feel
good show. There's a lot of.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Real reality in that. This is not this is really
we're getting down to nitty gritty like we're getting down
to like, if you have a problem, call me, let
me see what I can do for you. Like I
want to be that person to somebody. I want to
be the person that those people were to me. And
(25:16):
I have many that have tried to help, and I
have you that have been truly successful. And this is
my last run, like I have had some amazing people
circle around me and really be like, you know what,
we love you. We don't care about the Renee on TV.
We don't, you know, Cause it's like I was Anthony's
daughter all of my life. I was Junior's wife for
(25:41):
uh when I was twenty till I was the very
endst Nobody dated me. I was always looked at differently.
Then I was a mob wife, Then I'm a reality star.
Then of course first and foremost before that, after the
marriage part, I'm AJ's mom. So I was never just Renee.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Yeah. So I'm starting to figure.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Renee, Yeah, you am.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
A very loving, kind individual who does have issues with control.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
I need to let go.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
But I'm afraid to let go because I'm Once I
let go, I don't know what happens anymore. If I
hold on tight enough, I feel like I'm going to
get It's not true. Sometimes you have to let go
to grow. I'm smart, I'm pretty, I could be sexy.
I'm starting to find myself, like you know, my ex husband,
(26:44):
and growing up, I was badly bullied and I was
told how ugly I was and all these things about
physical parts of my body. So I started to change
things about myself from getting my BBL.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
To you know, I had a flat ass all my life.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
I was always told my nickname was sheet rock, like
my ass was flat. So I was told by my
ex husband I was ugly, and you know, okay, I
need to nose y'ab. I was never ugly, and yes,
my ass.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Was flat like the wall. I will give them that,
But I was never ugly. I was really a pretty kid.
I was just never told you're beautiful, like it wasn't something.
My father didn't walk around the house and tell us
we were beautiful. That was not happening. You had to
be dressed, cobbed this that.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
And I came later to find out that my father's sisters,
unfortunately were abused. So now I know why my father
was so protective of us.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Even more. My father's got.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
And he didn't want people looking at you guys in
that way. He wanted to protect you, so he didn't
even want you to think it because he didn't want
that energy around y'all.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So he was trying to protect you.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
I'm not mad, Yeah, yeah, yeah, my father kept me safe.
Had my father never went to jail, I probably would
have never O D and ended up in the situation
that I did, which I take responsibility for the o
D and I take responsibility for where I ended up
in the hospital, but I will not take responsibility for
(28:20):
what the person did to me because that's when I started.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
You know, I had to.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I would smell this person on me after being assaulted,
and it wasn't until.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
I owned my part in it. That the day I
owned it, everything went away.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Oh THEO I ever feel the memory and the trauma triggering.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
The only time I talk about it is in an
interview or if I'm speaking to women. That's the only
time I talk about it. Now I don't smell him anymore.
I don't see him everywhere. I don't smell him, you
know I was. I would start scratching really bad at
times from nerves.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I would shake. I don't really shake anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Like you know. There's things, Thank you well.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I learned little things like I know that smell can
change your thought process.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
So I started carrying like all different oils, and if
I felt something, I'd smell it and it would like
especially tangerine. It would switch my brain up and it
would allow me at least a five minute window to
process what I was. So I wouldn't react over emotional
because people be like you so dramatic, You so dramatic,
and I'd be like, get attacked. Let me know how
(29:31):
you feel afterwards. Get your beaten, Let me know how
you feel it. Have your whole family go to jail
one day, one day on a Thursday, every single person.
Let me know how you feel about that. Have your
father do fifteen years in prison. Tell me how you feel.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Have somebody date you only because who you are on TV.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Let me know how you feel because if you can feel,
please tell me what you're doing so I can do
it too, and I could spread the word on TV.
I want to know you know why am I dramatic?
Sorry my nose from crying a little bit?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
No, why am I so spot on? Like uh on
the money? How of course you're killing it. You're doing
such an amazing job, like holding yourself strong and get in,
like seeking information to help yourself and better yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You're doing a phenomenal job.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Okay, go ahead, I interrupted you, and here are you're
about to say?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
So?
Speaker 5 (30:30):
The healing process is far from over, and it's it's
never gonna end. I don't truly well, maybe it will
one day, Maybe I will have that night in shining
armor as opposed to the night the dark Knight wrapped
in cheap tinfoil.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
You know, maybe maybe you know what that.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I think your night enshining Armor is going to be yourself,
I really do. I don't think it's gonna be someone else.
I don't like I think I'm gonna well, I think
you don't have people to love and support you. But
I think what's happening now is like you said, who
is Renee, and like you're listening on the sayings, Renee
(31:12):
is loving, Renee is kind like you are just you're
such an amazing person. I think like just letting yourself
fully love yourself, embrace yourself, accept yourself, give yourself a
freaking hug and some grace for like what you have
been up against and how incredibly well you have thrived
(31:33):
and navigated and had so many obstacles that are just
a mindfuck to get through, you know, and you've done
an amazing job. And I think just like letting yourself
see how beautiful and gentle you are too, and loving
and like, you know, just like letting yourself love yourself
(31:56):
and not have to be protected all the time. I
think that's what the season you're gonna being now, because
I'm just so proud of you and impressed by you.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
I still have a lot of work to do. I
you know, I'm a hand I'm not a handful. I'm
not two handfuls. I'm like three and four, So I
have to have two managers. I'm probably just my ass
is probably this from this stupid BBL is probably like
four handfuls.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
So then you got to add my.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
Boobies, which are definitely like five handfuls.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
So I'm working on like a ten. I'm like a ten,
Like I need like a community around me, yeah, you know,
and I have.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
A great manager who is so patient and kind with me,
and he's just really like breaking down to me, like
what makes you tick more or less? Because sometimes I
act out, even you know, in business, like if something
doesn't go my way, I'm like, you know, and I'm
like expecting my father to like come in and fixed it.
(33:00):
My father is gone, My world is gone. There's no
mob shit around me anymore.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
That's gone. It's gone.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
Now it's about me learning, you know, and I have
somebody that's patient and is really trying to help me.
I just got to stop kicking and screaming and thank
you for allowing me to realize that.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
But hey, you how could you not though? Because your
whole life, your dad has stepped in. Everything's handed you.
That's the way it is. And if it isn't that way,
you would get I mean, you could say this needs
to change, and it would change on a dime. So
it's like, how could you not expect that or have
trouble realizing that it's not there anymore? I mean, that's
(33:47):
a giant ship.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Well, and my sister was my manager for many years,
so I had my sister like filt that father spot
for me.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
And you know, she took care of my money and
she made sure my bills were paid dad. She did
everything for me that way.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
I had to go to work, show up, do what
I do, and the bills would be taken care of.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Don't worry about it. You get an allowance.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
Because I'm a little bit of a I like to
I like to live in hotels. But when she gets
my hotel bills, she wants to choke me. She's not
mattered her anymore. We parted ways probably a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
She's my sister. I love her always.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
But business we're not good in business because Jennifer is
also she is an intellect. It's all up here.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
There's no this.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
That's a problem for me because if you can't connect
with me emotionally or understand me emotionally, then there's a problem.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Someone said to me, she don't get off the pot,
and I'm like, no, I'm gonna sit on the pot. Now,
I'm gonna get off the Now, I'm gonna sit on
the pot. I'm gonna get off the pot. This is
me for the past like months. I'm gonna sit on
the pot. Okay, you do it, but give it back
to me. So there's a you know, in recovery, step
(35:11):
three is like, you know, turning your will over to God.
And this is my struggle with recovery, relationships and business.
I give it to you, but then I want it
back because I feel like I'm losing control.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
What do you know? I can't trust you.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
One hundred percent because look what my ex husband did
to my father. He put my ratit on my father,
wore a wire my uncle, Jim Best I didn't touch
on that.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
You want to talk about more trauma.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
So right after he said okay, So I had plastic
surgery gone terribly wrong, and I died on the operating table.
I got mersed through my whole. I got mersed through
my whole entire body. I lost six point three pints
of blood. I lived in a hospital for about three months.
Had a pick line to my uh, wherever you medicine
(35:59):
goes because I'm vanko mayasin resistant. So for three or
four days, as I lay there getting my last rights
read to me two times, this man decides he's going
to come back to me, tell me he loves me,
confess this love for me. I'm going to think, oh,
it's a God, moment I take him back, he came
back only to jack pot us and rid.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
On my father.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Is that how your father went to jail the last
time because of your ex husband?
Speaker 4 (36:29):
But yeah, after.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
After you spent your whole marriage protecting him.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Right, But I left him.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
I left him when my son was five because I
found out that he had a fiancee who I thought
was the girlfriend all along, and she was pregnant, but
we weren't divorced. Listen, well, I could do. Listen, if
somebody could. I wish I don't wish self medicating. I
wish I could get like my God, the strongest man
(37:01):
in the world, the smartest woman in the world, and
a bunch of other people.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Should walk exactly in my shoes.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
To have to go back to my childhood, put on
those shoes and do my life. I want to know
if you could do that and you could get through
it and navigate and not crack and break.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
You got to be the strongest woman in the world.
You got to be the.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
Strongest, the smartest, the most loving, the most.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
You gotta be God.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Yeah, we know he's not right, which we know he's
not down here, so I guess no one's gonna really
do what I've done.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Now.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
There are that are strong, there.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Are women that have had stories probably that are worse
with maybe the abuse and and lots of other avenues.
But if you to put everything, and this is not pity,
I don't feel bad for myself.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
I asked to have the things I got. I wanted
this guy, I got him. I just didn't know him
well enough. I didn't know his background, like I didn't
know that he was garbage, right. But from that garbage,
I got my son right. And my son is an amazing,
amazing young man, and he's nothing like his father. My
(38:15):
son likes gonna work, his worth ethic is amazing. He
has two babies, five Anthony Johna's five, Olivia Jadas two
and a half, and twins that are due any day.
So am I grandma sometimes and sometimes I'm a glama.
But I really have to tell you, I appreciate this
interview tremendously. You totally change my thought process this morning.
(38:39):
I was having a little bit of a struggle this
morning with a couple of situations, and I was trying
to figure out what do I do, how do I act?
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Do I give them what they want, Do I do I,
do I fall back?
Speaker 5 (38:55):
Do I listen? Do I take it? Take direction? Or
am I being told what to do? Like I have
to like really break everything down in my life. And
unfortunately for me, when you tell me what to do,
I want to do it because I want you to
be happy.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Say that that's not very bright, honey.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
But that's how your years of training. I mean, it's
of course that's an instinct. I have that same instinct
as well. So you have to like catch yourself.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
Well, I'm people pleaser me too, and I want you
to and I want you to love me.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Just love me, just love me. If you love me,
that's going to be enough for me.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
And I'm gonna heal and I'm gonna be the stupid
star and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna be
everything you want.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
I'm gonna be a miserable bitch because once again, I'm
putting myself in a situation that's not allowing me to
find out who I am and what I want and
what I like. Now that being said, my fairy my
Mother is really exciting. It's it's it's my own, it's
(39:59):
my show.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
I created it. I'm going to be an ep on it.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
We're just shooting the pilot, but there's other contracts involved,
and I'm really excited. I just shot like ten episodes
of something that a friend of mine in.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Florida, he's adopted.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Doctor Dave Suarez was like, I have this idea, Renee,
what do you think?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
And he's told me to go hold on, Hey, I'm
going to need a camera crew. Blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
My manager pulled it off and we came and we
filled ten episodes. Granted we did it in four days,
and it stressed me out to the point where I
was starting to question if I want to go.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Back to television.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Because I don't work five scenes a day. I'm traveling
all over. I got four suitcase because I moved to Florida,
so I got four suitcases with me. I got a
daughter in law that's on high risk. You know ed,
my son's working five am to like ten at night
for overtime. It's like, my whole world is very different.
Like if I followed you, like, hey, Dad, do me
(41:02):
a babe?
Speaker 4 (41:03):
But did you make that wall? Made from the other room? However,
like I got to get up and go.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
And this friend that I have in my life that
finally gave me a kick in the ass. And it's
just like, get out of bed because I.
Speaker 4 (41:15):
Wasn't doing much.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
I mean, I've done television obviously since Mob Wives, I've
been very successful in that sense of the word. But
the financial security, that's not what everybody thinks it is, right,
And when you live for other people, your money vanishes.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
Yeah, and then I'm like, what do I have to
show for myself? Wait? I have nothing to show for
my hard work for me, right I have?
Speaker 5 (41:42):
I mean what I buy myself like two fancy pocketbooks
with all the money I've made.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
My son has been on more trips than you could count.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
He's had more cars than I've had, and I'm way
older he has. You know, I try to give my
son what my father gave me because there were avenues
in my life. I knew I wasn't one hundred percent.
And am I a bad mom? No, I'm a very
loving mom. But am I a bad mom in the
(42:09):
sense that I couldn't get it together for my child?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
But you got to cut yourself some grace, you. I mean,
I totally agree everyone has sake responsibility for their life.
I'm with you on that, but you also have got
to give yourself some major grace because exactly what you said,
like put the strongest spiritually, mentally, physically, whatever person neck
and neck with you and y'all put them all into
(42:34):
your childhood and like watch it. You know, have a
case study and like let them get to fifty years
old and examine their life. Like every single one of
those people is going to have just grenades going off everywhere.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
Yeah, matter of fact, done.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
An incredible job. You've done an incredible job.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
And so like literally give yourself grace, Renee, because honestly,
you are.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
An amazing person.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And the way you've come out of all that and
like take an ownership for yourself and you're finding yourself
and you're really examining your life that is huge, like enormous.
Like what you're doing, the work you're doing is so
hard to do. And the trauma that you're having to
look back on and examine and deal with and like
(43:24):
make sense of. I mean, that is just a lot
for a human brain to process.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
It is, so I think that's why God made me
with that add and that ADHD so I couldn't focus
on just exactly how bad my life was. Yeah, changing,
you know, there was a joke they would say Rene seventeen.
I was like, I don't have seventeen personalities.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
I have seventeen moods. That's are we allowed to purse?
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, Oh.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
That's the fuck you mo, that's the fuck you, Renee,
that's the oh, just love me, that's the d you
know who I am Renee?
Speaker 4 (44:03):
That is oh my grand baby.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Like there is so many Renees up here, but there
are so many you, there are so many, so many,
Like every time we do something different, we have to
be somebody different. You can't be the same person you
are at work and be that person at home with
you children. You can't be the same person you are
at TV and then the same person when.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
You're all alone with yourself.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Because I'll tell you that person that I was on
TV made me want to self medicate, made me hate
me more than anything. So you know what, you could say,
I'm Renee seventeen. You can call me Renee thirty five.
I don't care. I have to be somebody different in
every scenario because I don't know what I'm up against.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
So am I supposed to go.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
In all bind and sweet and then you fuck me
and plain english excuse my mouth with now that I
know a go first, I'm like guy and look at
him and look at him and be like, yeah, I
trust him. No, I don't trust you at all, not
at all. My husband, ex husband rap fasted married me
to get closer to the mob, so he gets cheat
(45:08):
all over me.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
So then he get abused me in every way of
that word abuse. I'm talking.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
We know all the components of abuse mental, emotionally, physically, sexually,
and verbally. Yeah, for many years scarred me, scarred me
on a level that I am still taking into other
relationships and ruining my new relationships because you know, I
(45:37):
was told will you live in the past, how could
you be in the future of? Or how could you
be in the president of you live in the past.
I'm not trying to live in my past.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
I just know those are the things that made me
who I am.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
So I don't have the best love life, absolutely, not
best sex life, but not the best love life. Have
that No, trying to figure out like.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
What do I do next?
Speaker 5 (46:12):
Like, okay, so my friend that's pushing me got me
out of the bed got me on the phone with Joe.
I started, you know, starting to move around and the
next thing you know, I'm on a plane. I'm filming
on this and that, and as I'm doing it, I'm
starting to feel uncomfortable again. Okay, I'm starting to feel
you know, what did I do to myself? What kind
(46:34):
of position have I put myself in? And although we
have secured the bag, as you say, and secured the deal,
that show is a yes for me. Breaking Bread was
a little harder because it wasn't formated what I'm used
to the guests that I've had on the show from
(46:57):
Math HOPFA, which is I.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
Mean, he's an amazing, amazing young man. Yeah, he's definitely
younger me. The brilliance and the mindset.
Speaker 5 (47:10):
My girlfriend Tinisia, who owns a spa like we We've
I've spoken to the gentleman.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Who owns Seacrest Recovery. It was all different avenues.
Speaker 5 (47:21):
So I've got that Breaking Bread is a conversation over
food and you're really getting to know somebody. You're you're
opening up the conversation. We're talking about recovery, life like experience,
rands and films with Yeah, so that is that that
is going to take a little bit more shaping, but
(47:44):
I believe it's gonna go far because these are conversations
we want to have that people aren't having anymore because
we've been sensitized, like we like you have to watch
everything you say. Ooh, don't talk about religion, don't talk
about race, don't talk about that.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
I think that's why you're great.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
This is what you're so great at being a public
figure and communicating people and bringing them together because you
have had such a huge life and your bandwidth of
experiences from top to bottom or across the spectrum, like
you've seen it all done at all. You have just
a lot of grace and empathy for people. You just
understand people. You're not expecting people to be perfect or
(48:21):
great or whatever. It's like you are just real with
what it is and you're just talking about life, and
you have a lot to talk about, and you are
so interested in so many things, Like your conversation is
just fascinating, and you bring up incredible topics that people
need to talk about.
Speaker 5 (48:37):
Because we do need to talk about what's happening in
this world. We do need to talk about it. Enough
already enough, Ye keep me quiet. You know what I mean, Like,
even if I'm not on earth, I'm telling you I'm
still coming back somehow. Like it's I'm at this point
where like I have grandchildren. You know, I wrote a
children's book, Grandma and Me on the Run, And that.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Book is yeah, yeah, I know. It's supposed to.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
Be Grandma and me on the lamb, like like I
got I'm a kid from the lamb, or me and
him are like on the run from the police. But
it's a fun book. But in that book, I'm showing
my grandson diversity in the world.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
You're not listen. My father always said you are not
better than nobody than anyone.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
And nobody is better than you. And I didn't understand that.
But for me, that means I don't care what color,
what country, what religion. You are the same as every
we are. I am the same as the person standing
next to me. I just made us different so we
(49:39):
could shine bread like the North Star.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
We're different. So if we were all the Dame color
and all the think colorizeddink color hair and the same,
we would just be robots.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
We wouldn't be these humans that we could touch and
feel and smell and and love and hug. So in
the book, I I show him. You know, he has
his Jewish friend in the book, and like all different
like they celebrate different holidays and you know, different races,
different coaches, and it's he's with everyone. Whether you're Asian,
(50:16):
you're black, you're white, you're China, whatever.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
You're all together. We're all together. And that is.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
Super important for me, super super important for me because
I grew up very ignorant, very very ignorant, coming from
the mob world. You know, people say, well, do you
date black men? That's a lot, that's a big question.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
I get. I date men period. That's why I date men.
I don't care. We'll call you off.
Speaker 5 (50:45):
If you're a man, I'll date you. But you better
be a man. And if you say you love me,
you better love me. Because if you don't sleep, not
with one eye open, don't go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
For me is a big problem.
Speaker 5 (51:01):
I don't like to be like to oh buddy, oh
go out the door.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I don't care. What are you gonna do? Break my heart?
Speaker 5 (51:08):
My heart has literally been smashed, like it's been smashed.
I don't there's missing pieces to my heart, you know.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
What I mean.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
And that's what I think, you know in a relationship
that I'm looking for. I'm looking for that one piece,
that piece that can make it full. And that doesn't
mean I need you to marry me tomorrow, and that
doesn't mean that I'm not willing to put into the relationship.
I'm just looking for that one missing piece that's that's
out there. Yeah, and I believe, I believe it. I
(51:38):
know that God does not want me to be alone.
I know he doesn't want. I have so much to give,
but I have to learn to control my anger, control
my mouth, sit down at times and do nothing as
opposed to talking too much, to trying to get myself
out of something.
Speaker 4 (52:00):
With you, I loved, I truly do I want you.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
You're so much aware. You're like you're so aware of yourself.
That's what I like love so much about you. You're like, listen,
this is me, Like this is all of me. There's
I have all these different personalities and modes and like
I know them, I accept them, I love them. That
is so amazing, Like it is so awesome.
Speaker 5 (52:24):
Because I'm because what man is out there that doesn't
have the different personalities?
Speaker 4 (52:28):
What man is out there? Yeah? Please and flirts every
woman has a flirt ability too.
Speaker 5 (52:35):
You know. For me, I'm not come if I'm in
a relationship, I ain't going nowhere like I'm here, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (52:42):
And that has to do with self.
Speaker 5 (52:43):
Respect, not not solely because of you, because of me.
Speaker 4 (52:49):
I respect me so much that I'm not gonna.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Lay down one of another man. If I'm in bed
with one not happening, I can't. I was young, i'd
been wild and crazy, but I was single when I
was wild and crazy. You know, if I'm with you,
i'm with you. I'm with you until we decide to
part waits, then I'm not with you right Then you'll
(53:12):
get sick crazy for a little while again, and then
I'll go back to not being with anyone.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
You know. So I have been. I have been, Yeah,
up a lot.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Man.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
I'm actually gonna have to tell somebody else sorry. I'm like,
oh Jesus, I'm a handful man.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
No you're not. You're perfect, You're just right.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Oh No, I'm You're just not for you. I'm telling
you for them.
Speaker 5 (53:40):
I'm just right for somebody. But I'm far from perfect.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
My nose trus me.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
A lot of money is perfect, that's perfect.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
No, but you're perfect for you, Like who you are,
the life you've lived, what you've gone through, what you've
had to cover and discover and learn and navigate, like
you've done a perfect job for you with all the
tools and resources and the experiences that you have been
personally given, I feel like you have navigated.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Them so well, and you are so self.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
Aware and you know who you are, you know what
you're looking for, and you're working. You're willing to do
hard work on yourself, which a lot of people don't.
So I would just give yourself a break and relax
and like let yourself be proud of you because renee,
Like God, I'm impressed by you, like your your journey
is so inspiring, and if anything, you just deserve to
(54:40):
go travel the world and like peace out and just
enjoy yourself with no pressure for a while.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
Right, I definitely want to do that, but I want
to do that with a partner. I want to I'm
a dive hydra romantic. I love love, Oh how I
love it.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
That's so wonderful.
Speaker 4 (55:01):
Got my mouth and I have a tattoo that says
on it.
Speaker 5 (55:06):
And I should go like this to myself half the
time because sometimes I should just shut up.
Speaker 4 (55:13):
You know, just shut up? But W what was that?
W zippy zibby? Like this should be like like I
guarantee you this one person wishes.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
It was a yours has spaircle.
Speaker 5 (55:32):
You know, if I don't laugh at myself, I'll cry.
So I have to laugh. I have to laugh at
a lot of the things that have happened to me
that are sad, I still have to laugh. I have
to find laughter for me.
Speaker 4 (55:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (55:51):
Growing up, I wanted to be Lucille Ball, Carol Burnette,
and Joan jet with a twist of Donna Summa. That
was my really young Then I wanted to be Joan
Collins and Dianne Carroll from watching you know, Dynasty.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
But then I was told I couldn't be Diane Carroll.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
And I was like, but why, I don't understand, Like
this is how ignorant, Like you can't be Dianne Carroll.
I'm like, why why not?
Speaker 4 (56:18):
Well, Renee, you're not black? Why what do you mean
on mye? Why did we go to be based on
a color? Why can't I be Diane Carroll? Well? Why
could I not be her?
Speaker 1 (56:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (56:30):
And that was I could be.
Speaker 5 (56:31):
Joan Collins, who's from the UK, would her accent, but
I can't be.
Speaker 4 (56:35):
So these were things.
Speaker 5 (56:36):
That as a child made me very curious, like I
want to I want to touch and feel everything, you know.
And it wasn't until my thirties that I was even
introduced to a whole other world, the whole music industry,
a different culture, a different you know everything. And when
I got there, I was like, I'm oh, I felt
(56:58):
so much more comfortable away from my own people than
I did where I landed.
Speaker 4 (57:06):
And my girlfriend Tiffany has born. I worked for her.
Speaker 5 (57:09):
She's a big, huge, A list celebrity stylist. She took
me under her wing and I'm all way older and
you know, I was her assistant to fifty cent wardrobe.
I mean I started at the top, yeah, which is
another thing. Bigs life really hard when you start at
the top.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
What about that should be the name of your book.
That should be the name of your book, starting at
the top. Started at the top. Now we're here. I
love your story, Renee.
Speaker 3 (57:37):
I love just your honesty. I love how funny and
endearing you are. And you're just lovable. You're just so lovable,
you really are, And I love that you have seventeen
different sides of you.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
I love that. I think that is so fantastic. I
love your.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Big heart, how you're putting it out there in the
world with all of your great entertaining personality, and you're
giving back the way you like your children book like,
you really are putting good stuff into the world. You
really are shining love and light. And I just want
you to give yourself some grace and I want you
(58:11):
to know how endearing you are to someone like me
who doesn't have a big backstory with you. I don't
know your whole life, you know, but like just meeting
you first impression, hearing your story, there is so much
to love about you.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
And you are just such an inspiring.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
Human and your life is fascinating and the way you've
navigated it, Oh my god, Renee, like.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Ship that book. We're doing a book where you're doing
a movie.
Speaker 5 (58:40):
Hopefully a series will come from that. There's so much
happening around me. But I am very grateful for today
and thank you.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
Okay, so I'm gonna wrap up with just like one
two more questions. Because you are in the mob world,
the mob scene, and you were on Mob Wives and
all that and you're gonna be your mom, fairy godmother,
all this stuff. How can you just give me a
quick how to like how to be a mob wife,
how to be a mob daughter?
Speaker 2 (59:05):
What are the steps that it takes?
Speaker 5 (59:08):
Okay, well that's the that's a book, it is, that's
another one right now, because you just I've been jumped
down little things a few.
Speaker 3 (59:20):
It's like the top three things or five things that
you have to do a mob mob.
Speaker 4 (59:26):
Wife is.
Speaker 5 (59:29):
Never take your business out of your house, never betray
someone you love, and always be gorgeous, Always be beautiful,
and always be I think my son just walked in,
(59:55):
he walked right out. It's just there's a glass. I'm
your side, be beautiful inside it now.
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
I love it. Renee, You're amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Where can everyone find you if they want to follow
along with your journey?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Keep up with you?
Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
Renee Gressiana on Facebook, real Renee Gresiana on TikTok because
I I do my TikTok dances.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
I'm not I'm not like the computer person, but I try.
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
I love it. Renee, You're awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
I just I'm going to be following along with your
journey because I just think you are such an inspiring, amazing, interesting,
just loving human being. And I love that you're sharing
your life with all of us. And thank you so
much for coming on my podcast. I enjoyed this so much.
It was such a pleasure to get to talk to
you and hear your life.
Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
Likewise, thank you, doll.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Oh I sorry, I always wrap up with this. I
forgot leave your life? What do you want people to know?
It's open ended?
Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
I'm sorry I didn't hear the question.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
I always wrap up with this one question, which is
Lee your light. What do you want people to know?
Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
It's okay not to be okay every single day, and
you will find your way because there is a light
that's shining, maybe one of those stars.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Amazing, You're amazing. Thank you so much, Renee. This is
such a great conversation.
Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
But you're welcome.
Carlone. She's a queen of talking song. You know, she's
getting really not afraid to feel the taxis and so
just let it flow. No one can do we quiet, Carylone,
it is time for Caroline.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I am here with Renee Graziano. Girl.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You are just you've lived a life like you've lived
a life not many people, if anyone else, could ever
uh replicate.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Ah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I think no, it's amazing, Like your life is just
the opportunities that you have had an experience, the people
that you have lived and you know, done life with
the way you have put yourself out there in TV
and as an author and as a reality reality star
and as a mob life which I.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Mean, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You're just so cool and beautiful and yeah, you're a
movie star.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
You just literally you are. You are first star.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I did thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You're a star rede but you're life star. You were
born a star.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I said, I'd like to believe I'm the North Star.
I have to be the biggest. Yeah, you know what,
I think women are.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
In general just stars. I think we're very special humans.
I believe that, uh you know, being that we have
the ability to give life. There has to be something
very special about a woman because God chose us to
give life. So that's all you men that don't appreciate women,
(01:58):
But that came from a woman.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
That's right, Renee man, So talk to me about your life.
Tell me about how Renee got going. What motivates Renee?
Little Renee? What did you love to do when you
were a kid, How did you grow up? How did
you know you were destined to be this star and
have this like amazing phenomenal life.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Tell me how to about going?
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Okay, So as a child, it's funny my my parents say.
My mom always said, I knew you were going.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
To be a star.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
You were dancing on the coffee tables at three. I said, well,
I could have been a strip off dance it on
the coffee tables, which I wish I had some of
their moves every now and then, right, But that that
time you might be a little too rough for me.
At fifty three, however, little Renee was very energetic, a
little too much for the family. I'm very different than
(02:56):
my sister's how so, and that emotionally, I'm emotionally driven,
and in today's world that's not the best thing.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
However, I am me and God made.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
Me me for a reason, which yeah, I'm just starting
to learn about why I am the person I am now.
But as a child, I was like this raw rod,
jumping off everything and couldn't sit still. And I had,
you know, maybe a few issues as a kid that
today they would look at.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
As be like ADHD, like I've had it all. I
have it all. But back then it was just this
hyperactive little kid.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Which which later turned out to be unfortunate for me
because it wasn't looked at as a problem, but it
became you know, having a d D ADHD anxiety and
depression that was there as a young child. They just
you know, it wasn't spoken about when I was born.
So my father is God rest his soul, because I immediately
(04:11):
cry everything and I say that my best friend, I
loved my father.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
What What do you love about your father? What was
his personality? Like?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
What ch'all's relationship?
Speaker 5 (04:22):
Like I am a female version of him, but he's
very you know, my father was the life of the party.
This man would walk in and my father was it
was a short man. He was maybe like I would say,
five eight tops, okay tops, and he would walk in
but his presence was so powerful that and I'm talking
(04:44):
before he became the gentleman in the world. He was
in My father was always that guy, always that guy.
I loved being with my father. We used to go
crabbing on the boat. My father, like I was a
little bit tomboyish. He didn't have any sons. There's three daughters.
(05:04):
So he would take me places with him. And one
of my favorite memories as a young girl was.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
He would take me to this restaurant.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
It's still there today, so on Mulberry Streets called Casabella,
and my uncle Mike owned it. And he wasn't my uncle,
my blood uncle Mike, but he was my uncle Mike,
and I knew that.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
So he would take me.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
And he would sit me up at the bar and
the bartender would watch me and he'd be like, Daddy'll
be back in a little bit.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Just stay right here. And Uncle Mike would say.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Every time you finish a whole pup of cherries, I'll
give you one hundred. So by the time my father
got back, I had five hundred red fingers.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
But I never so.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I was a hustler from a very young age. I'm
just starting I had that mentality. I knew to eat
all the cherries even if my stomach hurt because I
had to get that money.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
So speaking which I'm gonna jot that down. That needs
to go in my book.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Story where it all began.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Yeah, my sisters and I my older sister she's almost
nine years older, and then my younger sisters three and
a half years. So there's a little bit of space
in between the three of us. My older sister obviously,
I tried to like be like her when I was young.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I wanted to do the makeup.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
I wanted to So I grew up a little too fast.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Okay, and I became fair.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And you became fast. Is that what you said?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yes, I did. So.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
I experienced things very young, whether it was sex, drugs,
going out to night clubs. I was sixteen and I
was out there like you know, and you know my
first boyfriend. I was very young. I was like fourteen
and a half. So I was ahead, well not not nowadays.
Those girls are ahead of me nowadays, but back then
(06:56):
I was fast. Again, some thing I didn't know that
was going to affect me later on in my life.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Interesting, I'd love to talk about that because that is
so true because when you are in when you are
a teenager coming into this and you have the opportunity
to experience this at a young age, of course you're
gonna want to if you have that, like that thirst
for curiosity like you do.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
And I am the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You want to know life, You want to be like
you you know you have you just want to like
experience it all and it all seems so exciting, but
it's hard to know.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Of course, you can't know what's.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Gonna be the uh, what's gonna happen because of it
down the road?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Right, So that's another thing which we'll discuss that and
then i'll tell you why that's leading me to my
next project.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
And really I'm sorry to interrupt you one more time,
but and I don't know how to talk about like
the Mob, like I've always thought it was, like you
really shouldn't talk.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
About it because I don't know how like it's a
secret or not.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
I got you said, what what mob got to play?
It's on every now and then I.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Know, Okay, so it was your dad associated with it
or your husband or like how did you get me?
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Okay, first of all, he's my ex husband, and he's
a rat bastard, so we don't even associate with No.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
No, yes, he is not to be spoken of.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
No.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
My father was a boss. My father was According to.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
The newspapers that I read, my father was the constelieri
of the Banana crime family.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
So my father was a boss.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Okay, what's that like, like you to have a boss
as your dad, Like, is he just like the coolest?
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Well, I didn't know. As a young child. You know,
I knew I was different. And I say this all
the time. My girlfriend's fathers worked nine to five and
my father worked five to nine, So I knew there
was a difference.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
We owned trucking companies.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
We had restaurants, but I knew I was different by
the way when I went places, the way people received me.
It was it is money in your pocket. It was
the best tables, it was the best of everything. You'd
walk into a jewelry store and you got you walking
out with jewelry. You're like, wait, I didn't I paid
for that. Oh take it home, tell you father, I
(09:12):
gave it to you walking into furious. So my life
was very glamorous. The only thing glamorous about my life
are the things that I'm talking about the diamonds, the firs,
the houses, the cars.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
That's glamorous. My life has died. The other half of
it is dark, really very dark.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
You're going, you know, you're going to visit your family
members in prison at the age of My father didn't
go away until I was.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Twenty one.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
But uh, six seventeen, my group of guy friends, my
best group of guy friends, they all went to prison.
They all got hit with twenty years. They're twenty. I was, yeah,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I was eighteen.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
They were twenty two and twenty three. Twenty years. They're
getting twenty years sentences, these guys. So there's this story
I was I was at a nightclub and I was
with a friend of mine and a guy comes around
the bar and he goes he's talking, and my friend says,
my friend Teddy says, this is TG's what they called
(10:16):
my father because they called him Tony Graziano.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I like to believe it was tough guy because small
as he was maniac. So the guy says, oh, yeah,
I know your father. You know he's a a captain
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I go.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
My father doesn't drive a boat. My father doesn't feel.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Like I didn't have any clue what the guy was
talking about. And my friend says, I think you should
go home and talk to your father. So I went
home and I said, you know, Dad, what's what's the story?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I was priged, you drive a boat? You tell us?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You know?
Speaker 5 (10:46):
I didn't know, and he was like, well, you don't
drive a boat, honey, but you should sit down. And
while other kids learned about the birds and the bees,
I learned about captains and soldiers and my lifestyle. And
when I mean learned. He never told me anything, but
he told me I was different. He told me that
I was going to be respected very differently. Things would
just come to me and just take them, be quiet
(11:07):
and keep it moving always, you know, be a lady.
My father did say, remain humble at all times. And
that's something else that affected me, because how are you
being humble when you're getting all these gifts and you
don't you know that? That kind of took me to
another level as well. I was like, well, I'm Anthony's daughter.
(11:28):
Excuse me, I'm not waiting on a line, you know so?
And I was told, you don't wait, you don't pay,
you don't wait, you don't nothing.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
You got me in my mob mode. Now my head
love it.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
So childhood was very interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Lead scary, like is it scary growing up? Like is
this stuff happening? I don't only seen movies like, I
literally don't know anything about it.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
I was never afraid because my father never gave us
a reason to be afraid.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
My father was.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Very, very, very well respected. So nobody was coming to
Allay house. Nobody was going to try to ars. And
we were women, so back in the day when women
were still respected. In that world, women are all women
and children. You don't approach, you don't contact nothing. So
it wasn't that way. It was really glamorous. It was
like the beginning of Goodfellas with the It was that
(12:20):
like and that movie I can relate to the most.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Let alone everybody they're talking about the movie. I know,
but who's uncle this and Uncle that?
Speaker 5 (12:27):
It was that life now watching that movie and I
was grown by this time. I started to see the
similarity the negative similarities in my life. Dad's not home,
Dad's always out. You know, there's there's a lifestyle. With
that lifestyle come women situations that you know people are
(12:49):
approaching you and.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
You don't know why now someone wants to date you.
Oh I love you? Do you love me? Or you
will love my father? Do you love me? Or do
you love life?
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Hence my ex husband and it took me many years
to find out that he didn't marry me. For me,
he was very he was twenty three, and of course.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
He just came home from jail. So this to me
is the perfect man.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Now, this mentality, but this is the mentality of that world.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
So it's okay to marry a guy that came out
of jail.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Why is he the first and if he just came
out of jail.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Because where I come from, jail isn't the worst thing
in the world because you come with a set of papers,
a PSI report, which is the pre sentencing investigation, so
you know about that person. So with that being said,
I had a worldwin of a romance. I was engaged
a month and nineteen days after I met him. I'm
(13:50):
going to save all those little details though for my book,
which I'm in the process of putting together.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
I had a very fast paced life.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
I had a very interesting life, but it's a life
that took me down. It took me in a rabbit
It took me down a rabbit hole because I was
always searching for what my father provided. So I wanted
my father provided protection. Yeah, my dad to me, my
(14:20):
father superman and.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Now longer than life. So no one's ever going to
compare to him.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
No, And again, you know, going into my next project,
I'm here to let people know that that's that's a
that's a fairy tale. You're not going to get your dat.
You know, if you look for your dad good in bed,
you're going to get what you're looking for.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Be careful what you look for, because.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
You're not going to get the man that was running
the household. You might get the man that's in the street.
If you have a if you're a daughter and you
come from an abusive household, if you're looking for that, you're.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Going to get that.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
And what women, children, women, men, boys, whatever they don't
know is when you're searching for a partner, you should
be searching for that man that for me, it's a
god sort of thing, like a man that's close to God,
that there's a respect for something greater than ourselves. And
(15:16):
my father could only be my mom's husband, he was
my father. I looked for a man that had that
was going to protect me the man I married I
needed protection from.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
So, yeah, what did your dad to a marriage?
Speaker 5 (15:38):
I never told my father anything, so I was who
because you don't rat. So lessons I learned I had to.
Now I just I just did what I was told.
So you don't have you never tell on nobody, Okay,
so if I tell on him and let me let
me go back. My first boyfriend did something very mean
(16:00):
and he ended up with a situation, maybe a cast
on one or two arms.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
I'm not too sure back then, but I.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Also felt that it was going to be my fault
if something happened to somebody because I'm an mpath I'm
very sensitive. I'm emotionally driven. So I'm afraid and worried
because I know what my father is capable of. I
can read now, I could read those newspapers. I'm not
going to subject somebody to that, especially to when I
(16:30):
say I love because if I love you, I love
you like I ride all the way with you.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Oh you get twenty years, let's go.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
I got you. I'm not stepping out on you. I
got your commisary. I'm there every weekend. Another foolish mistake
but fast forward a little bit to the fact that
I'm a domestic violence survivor, and it was many, many
years of a very sad situation. And again I'm going
(16:59):
to it for the book which I'm writing, but I
will tell you that it's an ugly truth of mine.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
I partied growing up. I used cocaine. I drink my champagne.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
I had my Crystal Rose sixty nine, which these kids
don't even know about. I was never really a drink.
I never liked alcohol. I tend to go to one
drug because it was able to stop everything up here.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
It was able to stop so.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
I would pay my adderal uh yeah, but I never
I didn't party every day. I partied on a Wednesday Saturday,
you know what I mean, and not very much back then.
That did progress in my life because I got some
sort of relief from my brain. Again, that was my
adderall back then, you know. So I have gone through
(17:52):
so many different channels and so many different versions of
me because I never knew who I was supposed.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
To be right And like you said, you couldn't really
tell the truth that there is something going on that
was not serving you or hurting you. It's like you
had to live with this, I guess secret because you're
supposed to protect at all costs, even if that's not
protecting yourself ultimately.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Right. And and that's another lesson that is.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Actually being too loyal that I lost my I was
so loyal to them that I wasn't loyal to me,
right And I have, you know, talked about loyalty. In
order to be loyal, you must be loyal to yourself
before anyone else, because you're selling yourself out.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
For everyone else.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
And there are things I'm these are things I'm just learning.
I would say my dad past four years ago, may
well be four years I'm starting to learn. I would
say maybe three, two or three years. I'm really experiencing everything.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
What do you mean by everything? Okay, of your life?
Like you're living your whole life up until now. If
I'm blocked it.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
It is coming out in such a manner. I'm so
sorry that, uh, it's coming out in such a manner
that it doesn't give me the I'm not getting relief
any longer.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I am Also, are.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
You drowning and you're you feel like you're drowning and
your trauma right now, like is it like so had
you blocked.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Not today? No, no, not, I would say. I went
away February.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
To change my life around, and I went through a
trauma program that traumatized the hell out of me.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
I can actually work.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Uh yeah, because they always say if you're not ready
to kiel the lid, don't. I thought I was ready.
I was not ready. It actually triggered everything inside of me.
So I went away February, March, April, I was home.
I came home May June. In the middle middle of July,
(20:03):
I screwed up for like a couple of days.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I popped Xanax.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
So Xanax became my uh I'll make you laugh though,
so pulled your doc right drug of choice. So I
remember going to the treatment. They were like, what's your doc?
I was like my plastic surgeon or my MZ or
what And they were like what.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
I was like, you asked who my doc was? They
were like no, yeah, So you know what, even using
I was still dumb, you know, but I used.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
I switched to zan x because after I was sexually assaulted.
That's another thing about my ex husband that we're going
to leave over there. But it happened to me as
an adult at the age of thirty seven by a predator.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And did you know this, Yeah, yeah, they had They
put me to you out.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I was in a hospital.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
It's a okay, it's a so it happened. There is
documented proof that it happened. But it ruined me. Now
every mind. All the men in my family are now
in jail. I'm divorced from my ex husband. He wasn't
a rat then, but he was probably always a rat
because he was a punk. Yeah, you could tell I
(21:22):
don't like him. My father was in jail, My brother
in laws were in jail. No, there was only females.
And this is happening to me, and now I don't
know how to I don't know what's happening to me.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I owe deed.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
And I was given medication from the doctors which was
annex at a very high dosage, which was not my fault,
and that was it for me. It was like, oh
my god, I can sleep mind you and I have
severe insomnia since I'm in my early twenties. This is
the lifestyle of waiting for your father or your husband
(21:57):
to get home euros up, yeah, or waiting here if
that phone calls. They got shot they're in jail, Like
that's how I lived. So once I started to self medicate,
I got this relief that I couldn't get anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Totally.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
It was very sad, though.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I cannot blame you for wanting some relief honestly, like,
I want relief from my life, and I haven't lived
through half the like any of the stuff that you
live through.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Humans want relief.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
We need relief from life, like life is hard enough.
And then throw yourself into your situation as a child
from the start.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It's like, of course you want relief. You would be
crazy if you didn't, right, But.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
I shouldn't have seek the relief that I did. It's
just I never went to anybody. I never went and said, hey,
this is happening to me. Oh, I'm sorry I did.
They didn't believe me because my ex husband would tell
them I'm doing things to myself and and God forgive
me for this, but I swear my grandchildren's eyes this
(23:08):
was not self inflicted.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Trust and believe me.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
The broken the shattered coxic bone not self inflicted. That
would be I'd be kind of really be able to
do a lot of different things if I could break
my own coxic bone if I could shatter it.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
But it happened. It happened, and it made it shapes
me in a different kind of way.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
What did it need to what did it do? Oh?
Speaker 4 (23:39):
It mentally destroyed me. It destroyed me.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
It destroyed that really happy little girl, It destroyed her.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
It's okay because God has found a way to give
it back to me in a different way. So for me,
it's really important to save a life. You know, not
one person, but many people help save money. So this
new project, we'll switch here so I could. It's called
My Fairy mob Mother, and it's about me trying to
(24:14):
just help some people. That is people that are like,
hey you, it's about me helping people. It's about me
doing things. And I kept the word.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Mob in there because I'm not knowing I'm nobody's godmother.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
But I could be your mob mother in the sense of,
oh you need that to happen.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Hello, I'm gonna need you to be here, there and there.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I'm still text it, you know, so I could still
call that person and be like, oh wait, I need
a deal on a car or hey, you know, furniture
deal whatever.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
So the show is really it's a give back, feel
good show. There's a lot of.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Real reality in that. This is not this is really
we're getting down to nitty gritty like we're getting down
to like, if you have a problem, call me, let
me see what I can do for you. Like I
want to be that person to somebody. I want to
be the person that those people were to me. And
(25:16):
I have many that have tried to help, and I
have you that have been truly successful. And this is
my last run, like I have had some amazing people
circle around me and really be like, you know what,
we love you. We don't care about the Renee on TV.
We don't, you know, Cause it's like I was Anthony's
daughter all of my life. I was Junior's wife for
(25:41):
uh when I was twenty till I was the very
endst Nobody dated me. I was always looked at differently.
Then I was a mob wife, Then I'm a reality star.
Then of course first and foremost before that, after the
marriage part, I'm AJ's mom. So I was never just Renee.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Yeah. So I'm starting to figure.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Renee, Yeah, you am.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
A very loving, kind individual who does have issues with control.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
I need to let go.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
But I'm afraid to let go because I'm Once I
let go, I don't know what happens anymore. If I
hold on tight enough, I feel like I'm going to
get It's not true. Sometimes you have to let go
to grow. I'm smart, I'm pretty, I could be sexy.
I'm starting to find myself, like you know, my ex husband,
(26:44):
and growing up, I was badly bullied and I was
told how ugly I was and all these things about
physical parts of my body. So I started to change
things about myself from getting my BBL.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
To you know, I had a flat ass all my life.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
I was always told my nickname was sheet rock, like
my ass was flat. So I was told by my
ex husband I was ugly, and you know, okay, I
need to nose y'ab. I was never ugly, and yes,
my ass.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Was flat like the wall. I will give them that,
But I was never ugly. I was really a pretty kid.
I was just never told you're beautiful, like it wasn't something.
My father didn't walk around the house and tell us
we were beautiful. That was not happening. You had to
be dressed, cobbed this that.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
And I came later to find out that my father's sisters,
unfortunately were abused. So now I know why my father
was so protective of us.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Even more. My father's got.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
And he didn't want people looking at you guys in
that way. He wanted to protect you, so he didn't
even want you to think it because he didn't want
that energy around y'all.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So he was trying to protect you.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
I'm not mad, Yeah, yeah, yeah, my father kept me safe.
Had my father never went to jail, I probably would
have never O D and ended up in the situation
that I did, which I take responsibility for the o
D and I take responsibility for where I ended up
in the hospital, but I will not take responsibility for
(28:20):
what the person did to me because that's when I started.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
You know, I had to.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I would smell this person on me after being assaulted,
and it wasn't until.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
I owned my part in it. That the day I
owned it, everything went away.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Oh THEO I ever feel the memory and the trauma triggering.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
The only time I talk about it is in an
interview or if I'm speaking to women. That's the only
time I talk about it. Now I don't smell him anymore.
I don't see him everywhere. I don't smell him, you
know I was. I would start scratching really bad at
times from nerves.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I would shake. I don't really shake anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Like you know. There's things, Thank you well.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I learned little things like I know that smell can
change your thought process.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
So I started carrying like all different oils, and if
I felt something, I'd smell it and it would like
especially tangerine. It would switch my brain up and it
would allow me at least a five minute window to
process what I was. So I wouldn't react over emotional
because people be like you so dramatic, You so dramatic,
and I'd be like, get attacked. Let me know how
(29:31):
you feel afterwards. Get your beaten, Let me know how
you feel it. Have your whole family go to jail
one day, one day on a Thursday, every single person.
Let me know how you feel about that. Have your
father do fifteen years in prison. Tell me how you feel.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Have somebody date you only because who you are on TV.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Let me know how you feel because if you can feel,
please tell me what you're doing so I can do
it too, and I could spread the word on TV.
I want to know you know why am I dramatic?
Sorry my nose from crying a little bit?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
No, why am I so spot on? Like uh on
the money? How of course you're killing it. You're doing
such an amazing job, like holding yourself strong and get in,
like seeking information to help yourself and better yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You're doing a phenomenal job.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Okay, go ahead, I interrupted you, and here are you're
about to say?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
So?
Speaker 5 (30:30):
The healing process is far from over, and it's it's
never gonna end. I don't truly well, maybe it will
one day, Maybe I will have that night in shining
armor as opposed to the night the dark Knight wrapped
in cheap tinfoil.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
You know, maybe maybe you know what that.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I think your night enshining Armor is going to be yourself,
I really do. I don't think it's gonna be someone else.
I don't like I think I'm gonna well, I think
you don't have people to love and support you. But
I think what's happening now is like you said, who
is Renee, and like you're listening on the sayings, Renee
(31:12):
is loving, Renee is kind like you are just you're
such an amazing person. I think like just letting yourself
fully love yourself, embrace yourself, accept yourself, give yourself a
freaking hug and some grace for like what you have
been up against and how incredibly well you have thrived
(31:33):
and navigated and had so many obstacles that are just
a mindfuck to get through, you know, and you've done
an amazing job. And I think just like letting yourself
see how beautiful and gentle you are too, and loving
and like, you know, just like letting yourself love yourself
(31:56):
and not have to be protected all the time. I
think that's what the season you're gonna being now, because
I'm just so proud of you and impressed by you.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
I still have a lot of work to do. I
you know, I'm a hand I'm not a handful. I'm
not two handfuls. I'm like three and four, So I
have to have two managers. I'm probably just my ass
is probably this from this stupid BBL is probably like
four handfuls.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
So then you got to add my.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
Boobies, which are definitely like five handfuls.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
So I'm working on like a ten. I'm like a ten,
Like I need like a community around me, yeah, you know,
and I have.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
A great manager who is so patient and kind with me,
and he's just really like breaking down to me, like
what makes you tick more or less? Because sometimes I
act out, even you know, in business, like if something
doesn't go my way, I'm like, you know, and I'm
like expecting my father to like come in and fixed it.
(33:00):
My father is gone, My world is gone. There's no
mob shit around me anymore.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
That's gone. It's gone.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
Now it's about me learning, you know, and I have
somebody that's patient and is really trying to help me.
I just got to stop kicking and screaming and thank
you for allowing me to realize that.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
But hey, you how could you not though? Because your
whole life, your dad has stepped in. Everything's handed you.
That's the way it is. And if it isn't that way,
you would get I mean, you could say this needs
to change, and it would change on a dime. So
it's like, how could you not expect that or have
trouble realizing that it's not there anymore? I mean, that's
(33:47):
a giant ship.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Well, and my sister was my manager for many years,
so I had my sister like filt that father spot
for me.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
And you know, she took care of my money and
she made sure my bills were paid dad. She did
everything for me that way.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
I had to go to work, show up, do what
I do, and the bills would be taken care of.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Don't worry about it. You get an allowance.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
Because I'm a little bit of a I like to
I like to live in hotels. But when she gets
my hotel bills, she wants to choke me. She's not
mattered her anymore. We parted ways probably a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
She's my sister. I love her always.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
But business we're not good in business because Jennifer is
also she is an intellect. It's all up here.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
There's no this.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
That's a problem for me because if you can't connect
with me emotionally or understand me emotionally, then there's a problem.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Someone said to me, she don't get off the pot,
and I'm like, no, I'm gonna sit on the pot. Now,
I'm gonna get off the Now, I'm gonna sit on
the pot. I'm gonna get off the pot. This is
me for the past like months. I'm gonna sit on
the pot. Okay, you do it, but give it back
to me. So there's a you know, in recovery, step
(35:11):
three is like, you know, turning your will over to God.
And this is my struggle with recovery, relationships and business.
I give it to you, but then I want it
back because I feel like I'm losing control.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
What do you know? I can't trust you.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
One hundred percent because look what my ex husband did
to my father. He put my ratit on my father,
wore a wire my uncle, Jim Best I didn't touch
on that.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
You want to talk about more trauma.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
So right after he said okay, So I had plastic
surgery gone terribly wrong, and I died on the operating table.
I got mersed through my whole. I got mersed through
my whole entire body. I lost six point three pints
of blood. I lived in a hospital for about three months.
Had a pick line to my uh, wherever you medicine
(35:59):
goes because I'm vanko mayasin resistant. So for three or
four days, as I lay there getting my last rights
read to me two times, this man decides he's going
to come back to me, tell me he loves me,
confess this love for me. I'm going to think, oh,
it's a God, moment I take him back, he came
back only to jack pot us and rid.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
On my father.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Is that how your father went to jail the last
time because of your ex husband?
Speaker 4 (36:29):
But yeah, after.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
After you spent your whole marriage protecting him.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Right, But I left him.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
I left him when my son was five because I
found out that he had a fiancee who I thought
was the girlfriend all along, and she was pregnant, but
we weren't divorced. Listen, well, I could do. Listen, if
somebody could. I wish I don't wish self medicating. I
wish I could get like my God, the strongest man
(37:01):
in the world, the smartest woman in the world, and
a bunch of other people.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Should walk exactly in my shoes.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
To have to go back to my childhood, put on
those shoes and do my life. I want to know
if you could do that and you could get through
it and navigate and not crack and break.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
You got to be the strongest woman in the world.
You got to be the.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
Strongest, the smartest, the most loving, the most.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
You gotta be God.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Yeah, we know he's not right, which we know he's
not down here, so I guess no one's gonna really
do what I've done.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Now.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
There are that are strong, there.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Are women that have had stories probably that are worse
with maybe the abuse and and lots of other avenues.
But if you to put everything, and this is not pity,
I don't feel bad for myself.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
I asked to have the things I got. I wanted
this guy, I got him. I just didn't know him
well enough. I didn't know his background, like I didn't
know that he was garbage, right. But from that garbage,
I got my son right. And my son is an amazing,
amazing young man, and he's nothing like his father. My
(38:15):
son likes gonna work, his worth ethic is amazing. He
has two babies, five Anthony Johna's five, Olivia Jadas two
and a half, and twins that are due any day.
So am I grandma sometimes and sometimes I'm a glama.
But I really have to tell you, I appreciate this
interview tremendously. You totally change my thought process this morning.
(38:39):
I was having a little bit of a struggle this
morning with a couple of situations, and I was trying
to figure out what do I do, how do I act?
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Do I give them what they want, Do I do I,
do I fall back?
Speaker 5 (38:55):
Do I listen? Do I take it? Take direction? Or
am I being told what to do? Like I have
to like really break everything down in my life. And
unfortunately for me, when you tell me what to do,
I want to do it because I want you to
be happy.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Say that that's not very bright, honey.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
But that's how your years of training. I mean, it's
of course that's an instinct. I have that same instinct
as well. So you have to like catch yourself.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
Well, I'm people pleaser me too, and I want you
to and I want you to love me.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Just love me, just love me. If you love me,
that's going to be enough for me.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
And I'm gonna heal and I'm gonna be the stupid
star and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna be
everything you want.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
I'm gonna be a miserable bitch because once again, I'm
putting myself in a situation that's not allowing me to
find out who I am and what I want and
what I like. Now that being said, my fairy my
Mother is really exciting. It's it's it's my own, it's
(39:59):
my show.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
I created it. I'm going to be an ep on it.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
We're just shooting the pilot, but there's other contracts involved,
and I'm really excited. I just shot like ten episodes
of something that a friend of mine in.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Florida, he's adopted.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Doctor Dave Suarez was like, I have this idea, Renee,
what do you think?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
And he's told me to go hold on, Hey, I'm
going to need a camera crew. Blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
My manager pulled it off and we came and we
filled ten episodes. Granted we did it in four days,
and it stressed me out to the point where I
was starting to question if I want to go.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Back to television.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Because I don't work five scenes a day. I'm traveling
all over. I got four suitcase because I moved to Florida,
so I got four suitcases with me. I got a
daughter in law that's on high risk. You know ed,
my son's working five am to like ten at night
for overtime. It's like, my whole world is very different.
Like if I followed you, like, hey, Dad, do me
(41:02):
a babe?
Speaker 4 (41:03):
But did you make that wall? Made from the other room? However,
like I got to get up and go.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
And this friend that I have in my life that
finally gave me a kick in the ass. And it's
just like, get out of bed because I.
Speaker 4 (41:15):
Wasn't doing much.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
I mean, I've done television obviously since Mob Wives, I've
been very successful in that sense of the word. But
the financial security, that's not what everybody thinks it is, right,
And when you live for other people, your money vanishes.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
Yeah, and then I'm like, what do I have to
show for myself? Wait? I have nothing to show for
my hard work for me, right I have?
Speaker 5 (41:42):
I mean what I buy myself like two fancy pocketbooks
with all the money I've made.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
My son has been on more trips than you could count.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
He's had more cars than I've had, and I'm way
older he has. You know, I try to give my
son what my father gave me because there were avenues
in my life. I knew I wasn't one hundred percent.
And am I a bad mom? No, I'm a very
loving mom. But am I a bad mom in the
(42:09):
sense that I couldn't get it together for my child?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
But you got to cut yourself some grace, you. I mean,
I totally agree everyone has sake responsibility for their life.
I'm with you on that, but you also have got
to give yourself some major grace because exactly what you said,
like put the strongest spiritually, mentally, physically, whatever person neck
and neck with you and y'all put them all into
(42:34):
your childhood and like watch it. You know, have a
case study and like let them get to fifty years
old and examine their life. Like every single one of
those people is going to have just grenades going off everywhere.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
Yeah, matter of fact, done.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
An incredible job. You've done an incredible job.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
And so like literally give yourself grace, Renee, because honestly,
you are.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
An amazing person.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And the way you've come out of all that and
like take an ownership for yourself and you're finding yourself
and you're really examining your life that is huge, like enormous.
Like what you're doing, the work you're doing is so
hard to do. And the trauma that you're having to
look back on and examine and deal with and like
(43:24):
make sense of. I mean, that is just a lot
for a human brain to process.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
It is, so I think that's why God made me
with that add and that ADHD so I couldn't focus
on just exactly how bad my life was. Yeah, changing,
you know, there was a joke they would say Rene seventeen.
I was like, I don't have seventeen personalities.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
I have seventeen moods. That's are we allowed to purse?
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, Oh.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
That's the fuck you mo, that's the fuck you, Renee,
that's the oh, just love me, that's the d you
know who I am Renee?
Speaker 4 (44:03):
That is oh my grand baby.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Like there is so many Renees up here, but there
are so many you, there are so many, so many,
Like every time we do something different, we have to
be somebody different. You can't be the same person you
are at work and be that person at home with
you children. You can't be the same person you are
at TV and then the same person when.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
You're all alone with yourself.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Because I'll tell you that person that I was on
TV made me want to self medicate, made me hate
me more than anything. So you know what, you could say,
I'm Renee seventeen. You can call me Renee thirty five.
I don't care. I have to be somebody different in
every scenario because I don't know what I'm up against.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
So am I supposed to go.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
In all bind and sweet and then you fuck me
and plain english excuse my mouth with now that I
know a go first, I'm like guy and look at
him and look at him and be like, yeah, I
trust him. No, I don't trust you at all, not
at all. My husband, ex husband rap fasted married me
to get closer to the mob, so he gets cheat
(45:08):
all over me.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
So then he get abused me in every way of
that word abuse. I'm talking.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
We know all the components of abuse mental, emotionally, physically, sexually,
and verbally. Yeah, for many years scarred me, scarred me
on a level that I am still taking into other
relationships and ruining my new relationships because you know, I
(45:37):
was told will you live in the past, how could
you be in the future of? Or how could you
be in the president of you live in the past.
I'm not trying to live in my past.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
I just know those are the things that made me
who I am.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
So I don't have the best love life, absolutely, not
best sex life, but not the best love life. Have
that No, trying to figure out like.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
What do I do next?
Speaker 5 (46:12):
Like, okay, so my friend that's pushing me got me
out of the bed got me on the phone with Joe.
I started, you know, starting to move around and the
next thing you know, I'm on a plane. I'm filming
on this and that, and as I'm doing it, I'm
starting to feel uncomfortable again. Okay, I'm starting to feel
you know, what did I do to myself? What kind
(46:34):
of position have I put myself in? And although we
have secured the bag, as you say, and secured the deal,
that show is a yes for me. Breaking Bread was
a little harder because it wasn't formated what I'm used
to the guests that I've had on the show from
(46:57):
Math HOPFA, which is I.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
Mean, he's an amazing, amazing young man. Yeah, he's definitely
younger me. The brilliance and the mindset.
Speaker 5 (47:10):
My girlfriend Tinisia, who owns a spa like we We've
I've spoken to the gentleman.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Who owns Seacrest Recovery. It was all different avenues.
Speaker 5 (47:21):
So I've got that Breaking Bread is a conversation over
food and you're really getting to know somebody. You're you're
opening up the conversation. We're talking about recovery, life like experience,
rands and films with Yeah, so that is that that
is going to take a little bit more shaping, but
(47:44):
I believe it's gonna go far because these are conversations
we want to have that people aren't having anymore because
we've been sensitized, like we like you have to watch
everything you say. Ooh, don't talk about religion, don't talk
about race, don't talk about that.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
I think that's why you're great.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
This is what you're so great at being a public
figure and communicating people and bringing them together because you
have had such a huge life and your bandwidth of
experiences from top to bottom or across the spectrum, like
you've seen it all done at all. You have just
a lot of grace and empathy for people. You just
understand people. You're not expecting people to be perfect or
(48:21):
great or whatever. It's like you are just real with
what it is and you're just talking about life, and
you have a lot to talk about, and you are
so interested in so many things, Like your conversation is
just fascinating, and you bring up incredible topics that people
need to talk about.
Speaker 5 (48:37):
Because we do need to talk about what's happening in
this world. We do need to talk about it. Enough
already enough, Ye keep me quiet. You know what I mean, Like,
even if I'm not on earth, I'm telling you I'm
still coming back somehow. Like it's I'm at this point
where like I have grandchildren. You know, I wrote a
children's book, Grandma and Me on the Run, And that.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Book is yeah, yeah, I know. It's supposed to.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
Be Grandma and me on the lamb, like like I
got I'm a kid from the lamb, or me and
him are like on the run from the police. But
it's a fun book. But in that book, I'm showing
my grandson diversity in the world.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
You're not listen. My father always said you are not
better than nobody than anyone.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
And nobody is better than you. And I didn't understand that.
But for me, that means I don't care what color,
what country, what religion. You are the same as every
we are. I am the same as the person standing
next to me. I just made us different so we
(49:39):
could shine bread like the North Star.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
We're different. So if we were all the Dame color
and all the think colorizeddink color hair and the same,
we would just be robots.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
We wouldn't be these humans that we could touch and
feel and smell and and love and hug. So in
the book, I I show him. You know, he has
his Jewish friend in the book, and like all different
like they celebrate different holidays and you know, different races,
different coaches, and it's he's with everyone. Whether you're Asian,
(50:16):
you're black, you're white, you're China, whatever.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
You're all together. We're all together. And that is.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
Super important for me, super super important for me because
I grew up very ignorant, very very ignorant, coming from
the mob world. You know, people say, well, do you
date black men? That's a lot, that's a big question.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
I get. I date men period. That's why I date men.
I don't care. We'll call you off.
Speaker 5 (50:45):
If you're a man, I'll date you. But you better
be a man. And if you say you love me,
you better love me. Because if you don't sleep, not
with one eye open, don't go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
For me is a big problem.
Speaker 5 (51:01):
I don't like to be like to oh buddy, oh
go out the door.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I don't care. What are you gonna do? Break my heart?
Speaker 5 (51:08):
My heart has literally been smashed, like it's been smashed.
I don't there's missing pieces to my heart, you know.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
What I mean.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
And that's what I think, you know in a relationship
that I'm looking for. I'm looking for that one piece,
that piece that can make it full. And that doesn't
mean I need you to marry me tomorrow, and that
doesn't mean that I'm not willing to put into the relationship.
I'm just looking for that one missing piece that's that's
out there. Yeah, and I believe, I believe it. I
(51:38):
know that God does not want me to be alone.
I know he doesn't want. I have so much to give,
but I have to learn to control my anger, control
my mouth, sit down at times and do nothing as
opposed to talking too much, to trying to get myself
out of something.
Speaker 4 (52:00):
With you, I loved, I truly do I want you.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
You're so much aware. You're like you're so aware of yourself.
That's what I like love so much about you. You're like, listen,
this is me, Like this is all of me. There's
I have all these different personalities and modes and like
I know them, I accept them, I love them. That
is so amazing, Like it is so awesome.
Speaker 5 (52:24):
Because I'm because what man is out there that doesn't
have the different personalities?
Speaker 4 (52:28):
What man is out there? Yeah? Please and flirts every
woman has a flirt ability too.
Speaker 5 (52:35):
You know. For me, I'm not come if I'm in
a relationship, I ain't going nowhere like I'm here, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (52:42):
And that has to do with self.
Speaker 5 (52:43):
Respect, not not solely because of you, because of me.
Speaker 4 (52:49):
I respect me so much that I'm not gonna.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Lay down one of another man. If I'm in bed
with one not happening, I can't. I was young, i'd
been wild and crazy, but I was single when I
was wild and crazy. You know, if I'm with you,
i'm with you. I'm with you until we decide to
part waits, then I'm not with you right Then you'll
(53:12):
get sick crazy for a little while again, and then
I'll go back to not being with anyone.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
You know. So I have been. I have been, Yeah,
up a lot.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Man.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
I'm actually gonna have to tell somebody else sorry. I'm like,
oh Jesus, I'm a handful man.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
No you're not. You're perfect, You're just right.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Oh No, I'm You're just not for you. I'm telling
you for them.
Speaker 5 (53:40):
I'm just right for somebody. But I'm far from perfect.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
My nose trus me.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
A lot of money is perfect, that's perfect.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
No, but you're perfect for you, Like who you are,
the life you've lived, what you've gone through, what you've
had to cover and discover and learn and navigate, like
you've done a perfect job for you with all the
tools and resources and the experiences that you have been
personally given, I feel like you have navigated.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Them so well, and you are so self.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
Aware and you know who you are, you know what
you're looking for, and you're working. You're willing to do
hard work on yourself, which a lot of people don't.
So I would just give yourself a break and relax
and like let yourself be proud of you because renee,
Like God, I'm impressed by you, like your your journey
is so inspiring, and if anything, you just deserve to
(54:40):
go travel the world and like peace out and just
enjoy yourself with no pressure for a while.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
Right, I definitely want to do that, but I want
to do that with a partner. I want to I'm
a dive hydra romantic. I love love, Oh how I
love it.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
That's so wonderful.
Speaker 4 (55:01):
Got my mouth and I have a tattoo that says
on it.
Speaker 5 (55:06):
And I should go like this to myself half the
time because sometimes I should just shut up.
Speaker 4 (55:13):
You know, just shut up? But W what was that?
W zippy zibby? Like this should be like like I
guarantee you this one person wishes.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
It was a yours has spaircle.
Speaker 5 (55:32):
You know, if I don't laugh at myself, I'll cry.
So I have to laugh. I have to laugh at
a lot of the things that have happened to me
that are sad, I still have to laugh. I have
to find laughter for me.
Speaker 4 (55:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (55:51):
Growing up, I wanted to be Lucille Ball, Carol Burnette,
and Joan jet with a twist of Donna Summa. That
was my really young Then I wanted to be Joan
Collins and Dianne Carroll from watching you know, Dynasty.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
But then I was told I couldn't be Diane Carroll.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
And I was like, but why, I don't understand, Like
this is how ignorant, Like you can't be Dianne Carroll.
I'm like, why why not?
Speaker 4 (56:18):
Well, Renee, you're not black? Why what do you mean
on mye? Why did we go to be based on
a color? Why can't I be Diane Carroll? Well? Why
could I not be her?
Speaker 1 (56:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (56:30):
And that was I could be.
Speaker 5 (56:31):
Joan Collins, who's from the UK, would her accent, but
I can't be.
Speaker 4 (56:35):
So these were things.
Speaker 5 (56:36):
That as a child made me very curious, like I
want to I want to touch and feel everything, you know.
And it wasn't until my thirties that I was even
introduced to a whole other world, the whole music industry,
a different culture, a different you know everything. And when
I got there, I was like, I'm oh, I felt
(56:58):
so much more comfortable away from my own people than
I did where I landed.
Speaker 4 (57:06):
And my girlfriend Tiffany has born. I worked for her.
Speaker 5 (57:09):
She's a big, huge, A list celebrity stylist. She took
me under her wing and I'm all way older and
you know, I was her assistant to fifty cent wardrobe.
I mean I started at the top, yeah, which is
another thing. Bigs life really hard when you start at
the top.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
What about that should be the name of your book.
That should be the name of your book, starting at
the top. Started at the top. Now we're here. I
love your story, Renee.
Speaker 3 (57:37):
I love just your honesty. I love how funny and
endearing you are. And you're just lovable. You're just so lovable,
you really are, And I love that you have seventeen
different sides of you.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
I love that. I think that is so fantastic. I
love your.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Big heart, how you're putting it out there in the
world with all of your great entertaining personality, and you're
giving back the way you like your children book like,
you really are putting good stuff into the world. You
really are shining love and light. And I just want
you to give yourself some grace and I want you
(58:11):
to know how endearing you are to someone like me
who doesn't have a big backstory with you. I don't
know your whole life, you know, but like just meeting
you first impression, hearing your story, there is so much
to love about you.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
And you are just such an inspiring.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
Human and your life is fascinating and the way you've
navigated it, Oh my god, Renee, like.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Ship that book. We're doing a book where you're doing
a movie.
Speaker 5 (58:40):
Hopefully a series will come from that. There's so much
happening around me. But I am very grateful for today
and thank you.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
Okay, so I'm gonna wrap up with just like one
two more questions. Because you are in the mob world,
the mob scene, and you were on Mob Wives and
all that and you're gonna be your mom, fairy godmother,
all this stuff. How can you just give me a
quick how to like how to be a mob wife,
how to be a mob daughter?
Speaker 2 (59:05):
What are the steps that it takes?
Speaker 5 (59:08):
Okay, well that's the that's a book, it is, that's
another one right now, because you just I've been jumped
down little things a few.
Speaker 3 (59:20):
It's like the top three things or five things that
you have to do a mob mob.
Speaker 4 (59:26):
Wife is.
Speaker 5 (59:29):
Never take your business out of your house, never betray
someone you love, and always be gorgeous, Always be beautiful,
and always be I think my son just walked in,
(59:55):
he walked right out. It's just there's a glass. I'm
your side, be beautiful inside it now.
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
I love it. Renee, You're amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Where can everyone find you if they want to follow
along with your journey?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Keep up with you?
Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
Renee Gressiana on Facebook, real Renee Gresiana on TikTok because
I I do my TikTok dances.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
I'm not I'm not like the computer person, but I try.
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
I love it. Renee, You're awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
I just I'm going to be following along with your
journey because I just think you are such an inspiring, amazing, interesting,
just loving human being. And I love that you're sharing
your life with all of us. And thank you so
much for coming on my podcast. I enjoyed this so much.
It was such a pleasure to get to talk to
you and hear your life.
Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
Likewise, thank you, doll.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Oh I sorry, I always wrap up with this. I
forgot leave your life? What do you want people to know?
It's open ended?
Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
I'm sorry I didn't hear the question.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
I always wrap up with this one question, which is
Lee your light. What do you want people to know?
Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
It's okay not to be okay every single day, and
you will find your way because there is a light
that's shining, maybe one of those stars.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Amazing, You're amazing. Thank you so much, Renee. This is
such a great conversation.
Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
But you're welcome.
Host
Caroline Hobby
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