Throwback Thursday: Renee Graziano - Family Business

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Throwback Thursday: Renee Graziano - Family Business"

Episode Release Date: December 26, 2024
Host: Bunnie XO, Dumb Blonde Productions
Title: Throwback Thursday: Renee Graziano - Family Business

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Dumb Blonde podcast, host Bunnie XO engages in a raw and unfiltered conversation with Renee Graziano, a prominent figure known for her role in the reality TV series Mob Wives. The discussion delves deep into Renee's tumultuous upbringing, her tumultuous relationships, battles with addiction, and her journey toward healing and self-discovery. This episode offers listeners an intimate glimpse into the complexities of being raised in a mob-influenced household and the long-lasting effects of trauma and abuse.

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Early Life and Family Dynamics

Renee Graziano opens up about her challenging childhood, shaped significantly by her father, Anthony Graziano, a key member of the Bonanno crime family. She reflects on the lavish upbringing courtesy of her father's status, juxtaposed with the underlying tensions and secrets that permeated her family life.

Renee Graziano [02:10]: "My father spared no expense on any one of his daughters. Like, I miss him terribly. We're coming up on five years and my life was really very much like a movie."

Renee recounts traumatic memories, including instances of bullying at school and the strict, often oppressive rules enforced by her father. These early experiences laid the foundation for her later struggles with addiction and self-worth.

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First Relationships and Early Abuse

At the tender age of 13, Renee entered her first abusive relationship with a boyfriend named Frank. This relationship marked the beginning of her long battle with substance abuse, as she turned to drugs and alcohol to numb her pain.

Renee Graziano [12:23]: "I became promiscuous because of that, too."

Her lack of understanding about healthy relationships and the normalization of abuse within her environment contributed to her vulnerability and repeated patterns of entering harmful relationships.

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Mafia Influence and Hidden Truths

Growing up with a mob boss as a father meant that many aspects of Renee's life were shrouded in secrecy. She recounts the day federal agents raided their home to apprehend her father, a moment that left her confused and fearful due to the lack of clear communication.

Renee Graziano [09:08]: "I remember being 13 when I first experienced the feds broke down the doors...I didn't know what it meant."

These experiences fostered a sense of loyalty and fear, making it difficult for her to question her father's actions or seek help outside the prescribed boundaries of her family structure.

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Marriage and Escalation of Abuse

Renee's marriage to Hector Pagan further complicated her life. Hector, an abusive husband, subjected her to physical and emotional torment, exacerbating her addiction issues.

Renee Graziano [13:07]: "He sexually assaulted me. I remember losing it."

Throughout their marriage, Renee endured numerous forms of abuse, including physical assaults that left lasting scars and deepened her dependence on substances as a coping mechanism.

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Involvement in 'Mob Wives' and Public Struggles

Renee's participation in the reality TV show Mob Wives brought her personal battles into the public eye. The show documented her struggles with plastic surgery complications and her ongoing abusive relationship with Hector, blurring the lines between her real-life challenges and her televised persona.

Renee Graziano [51:04]: "My ass was even more concave. Now at this point, I'm dying."

The public exposure intensified her feelings of vulnerability and isolation, as she navigated the pressures of fame alongside her personal traumas.

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Battles with Addiction and Overdose

Renee's addiction journey is marked by multiple overdose incidents and a harrowing experience in a mental health facility where she was sexually assaulted. Her dependency on prescription medications like Xanax and Oxycodone was a desperate attempt to manage her pain and trauma.

Renee Graziano [39:35]: "And I was hooked, I think, in a week. And I was on two Oxy 80s, ready, six Roxies, Xanax, water pills, diet pills..."

Her overdose on fentanyl in September 2023 brought her to the brink of death, highlighting the severe impact of her addiction on her life and relationships.

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Recovery and Path to Self-Discovery

Despite the overwhelming odds, Renee shares her ongoing journey toward recovery and self-love. With support from her family and professional help, she has made significant strides in overcoming her addiction and healing from her past traumas.

Renee Graziano [94:07]: "I'm gonna help somebody realize that they are special and you don't have to have a hole in your soul."

Renee emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and the continuous nature of healing, acknowledging that while she has made progress, the journey is far from over.

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Reflections on Public Image and Reality TV

Renee candidly discusses the challenges of maintaining her authenticity while being in the spotlight. She reflects on the jealousy and conflicts that arose with other cast members of Mob Wives, attributing much of the tension to external pressures and personal insecurities.

Renee Graziano [74:07]: "I can't be you. You're not my father's daughter."

This introspection reveals the complexities of navigating relationships within a reality TV framework, where personal vendettas often spill into public arenas.

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Current Projects and Future Aspirations

Today, Renee focuses on her advocacy for mental health and addiction recovery. She is involved in various projects aimed at helping others overcome similar struggles, leveraging her own experiences to provide support and guidance.

Renee Graziano [96:49]: "My objective is to help someone realize that they are special and you don't have to have a hole in your soul."

Additionally, Renee is expanding her entrepreneurial endeavors, including her jewelry line Mob Candy and an innovative app designed to help users embody the Mob Wives aesthetic.

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Conclusion and Takeaways

Renee Graziano's story is one of resilience and transformation. From a tumultuous upbringing under a mob-influenced shadow to overcoming abusive relationships and battling addiction, Renee exemplifies the human capacity for change and healing. Her candid revelations serve as both a cautionary tale and an inspiration for those grappling with similar struggles, underscoring the importance of self-love, support systems, and the relentless pursuit of personal growth.

Renee Graziano [107:55]: "I'm gonna love me enough."

This episode not only sheds light on Renee's personal battles but also offers broader insights into the pervasive impact of trauma and the enduring quest for identity and self-worth.

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Notable Quotes

• Renee Graziano [10:09]: "Exactly. Like... when I tell you this man loved me, like there was nothing greater in this world."

• Renee Graziano [16:47]: "But because I had this relationship with God at a very young age, I felt it was a sin."

• Bonnie [24:27]: "For women like us who have grown up with trauma and the women at home that are listening, like, that's really all we've ever searched for in this world, is to give love and to receive love. And it starts with us."

• Renee Graziano [44:49]: "I have to protect my father and protect the other person. So it's really my fault."

• Renee Graziano [91:10]: "I'm a little angry at a few people, and maybe now that I said it, I have to work on that. But if I don't like you, I just don't like you."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the depth and breadth of Renee Graziano's conversation on the Dumb Blonde podcast, providing listeners with a thorough understanding of her life story, the challenges she has faced, and her ongoing journey towards healing and empowerment.

Transcript

[Renee Graziano]

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[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

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[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

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[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

To start listening, download the Amazon music app for free or go to Amazon.com adfreepodcast that's Amazon.com ad freepodcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. What's up, guys? Don't forget to sub to Patreon so that you can see the visual because not only do we have episodes of the podcast, we have exclusive content that nobody else sees on any other apps, behind the scenes photo shoots. And we're dropping a whole bunch of surprising stuff this year. So if you guys don't want to miss out and you want to be the first to know, go over to our patreon www.dumblondunrated.com Love you. Is this thing on?

[Renee Graziano]

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

[Bonnie]

Most little girls grow up wanting to be doctors and lawyers and. And I was like, I want to be super hot, make a lot of money, and be a rock star's wife. That was my goal as a child. And here we are. What's up, you sexy? Welcome to another episode of Dumb Blonde. Today we have our fairy mob mother here. This is Renee Graziano.

[Renee Graziano]

Hi.

[Bonnie]

How are you doing, mama?

[Renee Graziano]

I'm wonderful. It's such a pleasure to meet you, dude.

[Bonnie]

I'm so happy you're here. You're so striking in person. Like, you're beautiful online too, but you're just so striking.

[Renee Graziano]

No, I'm prettier in person. I love it. And I'm smaller.

[Bonnie]

You're tiny.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, People. People will always think I'm taller. I'm actually, you know, I did just lose like almost 20 pounds, so I am a little bit smaller than normal. But thank you.

[Bonnie]

It's your presence online that makes. That makes people think you're bigger than you are because you are such a. Just a power, power woman. Like a powerful woman. Like any room you walk in, you demand attention.

[Renee Graziano]

So, yeah, I think that's where my addiction comes from.

[Bonnie]

I love that.

[Renee Graziano]

Absolutely.

[Bonnie]

We'll definitely get into that. But I mean, you are a real Sicilian princess.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. My father spared no expense on any one of his daughters. Like, I miss him terribly. We're coming up on five years and my life was really very much like a movie. And I think that's another reason why addiction played such a really big part in my life. But growing up with like a mob boss as a father and you could do no wrong and everybody else was wrong, it was like the perfect combination. It was the perfect storm for me.

[Bonnie]

Absolutely. And so for those of those people who don't know, who is your father?

[Renee Graziano]

My father is Anthony Graziano. He was the Consulari of the Bonanno crime family.

[Bonnie]

That sounds powerful.

[Renee Graziano]

It doesn't it? You know, and my father's story is quite remarkable. No higher than an eighth grade education. You know, when he passed away, I found out that the first time he was ever arrested was for robbing Corn Flakes to feed his sisters. And he lived in a trailer with newspaper as the shades. And his mom's boyfriend was sexually molesting his sisters. And at 12, my father was shipped off because the man suddenly died in an electrical fire.

[Bonnie]

Oh, so do we think dad had something to do with that? Allegedly.

[Renee Graziano]

I hope he did.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. Anybody that hurts children, anybody that hurts.

[Renee Graziano]

Children deserves I. I hope he did. I truly do. Because for me, I now it makes so much more sense why he was the way he was with us. Like we had to be covered and you couldn't do this and you couldn't wear a bikini. And I was always like, what's wrong with my father? You know, and it was like, God forbid. You said you had your period. It was like you couldn't come out of the like your room. I remember I had my first breast reduction at like 18. Wow. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I had an F breast. Breasts, naturally. Yeah. I think God made me upside down and backwards. So my ass was flat, my boobs were huge.

[Bonnie]

Stop it.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, I kid you not. My nickname was Sheetrock. Okay, so you wonder why I have.

[Bonnie]

All these like, you know, who nicknamed you Sheetrock?

[Renee Graziano]

Well, okay, so my ex brother in law named me SpongeBob SquarePants. And then my ex husband, that evil bastard, that rat, no good prick.

[Bonnie]

We'll get into him later.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, we will. Yeah. I was just Always picked on.

[Bonnie]

That is terrible. And you don't look like Sheetrock. You're beautiful.

[Renee Graziano]

No, because I got my ass done, like, four times, and we're going to.

[Bonnie]

Talk about that, too. So circling back to childhood, you know, your dad was this huge mobster. And what was life like for you? Did you guys talk about it? Were you allowed to say the word mob? Like, I know. I've talked to the other girls, and they all have such different upbringings where, like, Ramona's family did not talk about it.

[Renee Graziano]

Not at all.

[Bonnie]

But Karen's family, they were just like.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, okay, so. So Ramona's grandfather and my father were very dear friends. Same family, Right. So they were very close. So growing up, all I knew is my father worked like most fathers worked nine to five. My father worked five to nine.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

So it was the opposite in the hours. And there were times that he, you know, wasn't home. But it was not something that we would ever question, because you're not allowed to ask questions. However, when I was about 16, I remember being in Pastels, which was the nightclub in Brooklyn, and I was at the end of the bar with my best friend, Teddy Persico, and a man comes over, and he introduced. Teddy introduced me. He said, oh, this is TG's daughter. And he said, yeah, you know, her father's a captain. I go, my father doesn't drive a boat. He goes, what? I go, he doesn't sail a ship. Teddy, tell this guy. But I didn't know what the words were, and I went home.

[Bonnie]

And they're looking at you like, I went home quick.

[Renee Graziano]

Teddy's going, shut up.

[Bonnie]

Shut up.

[Renee Graziano]

I go home. I go, dad, is this something you want to tell me? I was like, is that why you're not home on the weekends? Or he's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, you're a captain. And he was like, oh, my God, sit down. And it was like this moment of, you don't ever ask a question like that. Understand? You're a little different than everybody else. And I didn't know what it meant, but I started to understand because I had, like, that flashback when these kids in fourth or fifth grade glued an article of my dad to my desk. Yeah. So, you know, there were two young girls that I went to school with that bullied me. And one of the girls, her father was found in a trunk.

[Bonnie]

So I love how you say that so matter of factly.

[Renee Graziano]

I know. So this is. You know what's crazy, because now I Finally realized all these things gave me trauma, which I never knew.

[Bonnie]

Absolutely, baby.

[Renee Graziano]

But it was normal to me.

[Bonnie]

Trauma starts at the moment of conception. So, like, if your mom and dad were fighting her pregnancy, that's trauma. Like you. The minute conception starts, trauma, really?

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, that makes so. Oh, wow. Son into therapy immediately.

[Bonnie]

Were you. Were you close to your mom?

[Renee Graziano]

Growing up closer to my father. I'm like, my father's twin, but I was also born very sick, so I had spinal taps for the first six months of my life. I'm the only addict in my family. Well, I'm the only confessed addict in my family. For drugs and alcohol. Not alcohol, actually, drugs. I'm sure my father was an addict because of his lifestyle. You know what I mean? All that stuff that goes along with the mob. My sister Jennifer threw herself into work. You know, everybody has an addiction. Mine just resulted in drugs.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, so when you were born.

[Bonnie]

You had to have spinal taps, which is trauma right there for you to. So you came out of the womb already having trauma.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah.

[Bonnie]

Growing up, like you said, you did not know that your father was in the mob. How did they hide that from you?

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, so I remember I was 13 when I first experienced the feds broke down the doors and, like, sledgehammers. And they came in to get my father. And I remember, like, losing my mind and saying, you. You're not taking him. Like, I was on top of him, like. Yeah. And I didn't know. And he was like, renee, don't worry about it. I'm coming right back. Renee, just don't worry about it. And I didn't know what it meant, you know, and it wasn't explained. It was like, oh, don't worry about it. You know? But then there's things in the newspaper.

[Bonnie]

What do they say? Like, daddy ran a red light.

[Renee Graziano]

So bookmaking. So the reason Pete Rose didn't get inducted into the hall of fame is because he got pinched on my father's case.

[Bonnie]

Wow.

[Renee Graziano]

So there's a lot of that. That was when he was, like, really coming up, you know? And I knew I was different. I knew I was because my father would. When the Candyman would come on the corner of the block, my father would buy out the truck for everybody on the block. He was always doing stuff for everybody else, you know? And that's why I have this love for my father, because my father's never been charged with murder. So therefore, in my eyes, he's not one. Okay. So all the other little things that mobsters do, it's kind of in their own community. As far as, you know, what I knew, or if I watch a movie, I don't really get too much into that because people like to say, well, how could you defend your father? He was this and he was that. But at the end of the day, he was my father.

[Bonnie]

And all you knew from him was love.

[Renee Graziano]

Exactly. Like. And when I tell you this man loved me, like there was nothing greater in this world, that when he died, I wanted to die, I literally wanted to go with him.

[Bonnie]

You have two other sisters. Were they as close with him as you are?

[Renee Graziano]

Lana is nine years older, so my father was more in the street when she was younger, so there's a little bit of a resentment there. And I got all the attention because I was the sick child. So Lana actually hung me when I was six with a red, white, and blue plastic jump rope, hoisted me over the chandelier. I'll never forget that.

[Bonnie]

Oh, my God.

[Renee Graziano]

And then the other time, so. And then this other time.

[Bonnie]

That is not normal, Renee.

[Renee Graziano]

I know, but now I know why I have trauma. Then this other time, she put the dog leash around my neck, and she hung the cord from the other side, and she's like, just jump up the stairs and swing. I'm like, okay. You know, I was like a stick figure.

[Bonnie]

Oh, my God.

[Renee Graziano]

I was a stick figure. And she was heavier. So my father was harder on her. But her. Her things were like, lose 50 pounds, I'll buy you a car. Lose 50 pounds, I'll give you 15,000. 20,000.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

So it was different. I didn't have to. I was skinny. There was like. If I turned sideways, all. You saw my boobs. Like, there was nothing.

[Bonnie]

So there was definitely a jealousy factor.

[Renee Graziano]

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And then my little sister.

[Bonnie]

So you're the middle.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And a cancer. So my little sister in first grade had an eighth grade reading level, and in eighth grade, I had an eighth gr. So I was the less scholastically intelligent sister.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

So I had that complex from birth. I was ugly according to Lana, and I was dumb according to Jennifer. So. Which is normal for sisters and brothers and sisters to do it. It's not nice, but they do. It's not hurtful. It is. I took it on. I became that. I became ugly and dumb in my. That's what I saw. I literally saw it. And I automatically became promiscuous because of that, too.

[Bonnie]

At what age?

[Renee Graziano]

I was 13.

[Bonnie]

Oh, my goodness. I just got goosebumps. That's. You're a baby.

[Renee Graziano]

I wasn't a baby. My body didn't look like a baby. I looked like I was 18 years old at 13. I was like a triple D. Like, I looked. If you seen pictures of me at 13, you'd be like, who is she? I look. You younger now than I did at 13.

[Bonnie]

Wow.

[Renee Graziano]

So I. Yeah, my first boyfriend, I was, like, 13. And a half. And a half. He was 17, and his name was Frank.

[Bonnie]

It's a little weird.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. And he was abusive, and that was something I hid from my father. I always hid my abuse.

[Bonnie]

Abusive? Getting abused by a boyfriend at 13?

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah.

[Bonnie]

What would he do to you?

[Renee Graziano]

So we.

[Bonnie]

It makes my skin crawl. Because you're such a baby.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. It's funny, his daughter actually reached out to me on, like, Instagram. I was like, how's your fat father doing? I can't stand. Did he fix his nose yet? Did he.

[Bonnie]

Like, you know what?

[Renee Graziano]

Because, you know, you get scarred.

[Bonnie]

You get so scarred, and rightfully so. He deserves that. But I. I just. It's. You know, we're painting a picture here for people, and I don't think a lot of people have got to hear this from. They don't know this, and they don't understand what makes you. So. I don't want to say aggressive, but just so brazen and so, like, you know, this is how it is. Like, you have been molded by trauma since birth.

[Renee Graziano]

Thank you for this. Because a lot of people don't know these things about me because I always had to hide everything.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, but Frank was abusive very young, and I remember being 15, and we were going. Tony Danza was at my sister Lana's wedding, so we were attending something, and he was jealous because he couldn't come. So he stabbed. I'll never say he stabbed me in the side of my leg with a fork as I was coming down the stairs. But cocaine was already in place at 14.

[Bonnie]

So you were already doing drugs?

[Renee Graziano]

I was, yeah. 14, yeah. Absolutely.

[Bonnie]

Well, we're gonna talk about the abuse, but then we're gonna rewind back to the drugs.

[Renee Graziano]

So I think for me, I just stayed because I thought that's what I deserved.

[Bonnie]

So he stabbed you in your legs?

[Renee Graziano]

Like, in my leg. I have, like. I still have, like. Like, two little marks left in my leg. And I remember I had gone home one day, and I had a black eye, and my. My father was on the couch. And I walked in. He goes, come here. And, like, he didn't see anything. I was just walking straight to the room, you know, and he was like, come here. And I go, what's up? He's like, what happened to your face? I said, oh. I walked into the door. He goes, oh, yeah, you did. Sit down. And I was like, oh, shit. You know. He's like, what door? I said the door. Like, what do you say? Like, you know. Because at this point, I'm not really a liar. I suck at lying anyway. So I'm trying to, like, come up with a story in my head. And I know I can at this point. And I remember, I. Oh. And this is why I never told on somebody afterwards. So I said that he hit me. And my father goes, okay, watch this. So he makes a phone call, and he calls up the father and he says, I need you and your son to meet me at my restaurant. And this. It was on Forest Avenue called Mama Roses. And then he called two other guys who have now passed on. And my father goes, get in the car. And I'm like, oh, my God, what's gonna happen? I'm singing. I'll never forget it. I was singing the Isley Brothers in Between the Sheets in the car. He goes, what the fuck do you know about that? I was like, nothing. It's a song. And he's like, don't talk. I swear to God, it was so scary in the car with him. It was in his big Lincoln. We get there and he goes, go in the restaurant and don't go by the window. So what does that mean? That means go by the window, right? So now there's two Lincolns outside. Frank, his father, and these two guys. And I look out the window, and lo and behold, now Frank has a cast on his arm. Needless to say, we know what happened, how it got broken. And it was that very second that I knew I could never tell on another human because it would be my sin that they got hurt. And that's so wrong to think that way because he deserved to have his arm broken.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

But because I had this relationship with God at a very young age, I felt it was a sin. So I have to protect my father and protect the other person. So it's really my fault. It happens. And that's exactly where everything started. That's. That's really where it all started.

[Bonnie]

You just felt like you couldn't be honest because you were scared of the repercussions that would happen if, like, somebody hurt you or. Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

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[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

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[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

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[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

Let's rewind really quick before we get into that. You said that at that age you were already using drugs. When did you start using drugs and why were you using them?

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, so when I was about 13, I remember I did like mescaline, like double purple, double barrel. I'll never forget it. I had every bit of clothing that was on the. In the closet. On me. I was in the closet. My girlfriend's mother was like, what is Renee doing in the closet with the clothes? So I. Yeah, so I knew, like, that wasn't the drug for me because I didn't like that type of feeling.

[Bonnie]

I don't even know what that is.

[Renee Graziano]

What is that? Yeah, they don't even make that anymore. It's. It was like some kind of trippy drug. I don't, I don't like acid or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not like acid was really strong. This was like some little stuff.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And then I wanted to be very much like my older sister. So, you know, if there was partying going on, I wanted to do it too. So I remember it started with black beauties and yellow jackets and those are uppers. That was like speed.

[Bonnie]

Diet pills and stuff.

[Renee Graziano]

Correct. And then it just. When I met Frank, it was cocaine. So by 14, I was, you know, partying. 14, 15. By the time I was 16, I was dating like the biggest drug dealer in Staten island secretly.

[Bonnie]

And who is this?

[Renee Graziano]

Are we allowed to say, oh, he was so gorgeous?

[Bonnie]

No, I can't say it.

[Renee Graziano]

His name is.

[Bonnie]

But it wasn't Frank.

[Renee Graziano]

No, his first name is Jay. He was just like, he was beautiful. And he was like, you can't tell nobody because, you know, your father would be upset.

[Bonnie]

How old was he?

[Renee Graziano]

22.

[Bonnie]

22. And you were how old?

[Renee Graziano]

16.

[Bonnie]

I'm having this argument with our kid right now. She has 20 year olds hanging around and she's 15. And I'm like, there's something wrong with them.

[Renee Graziano]

Yep.

[Bonnie]

Okay, good.

[Renee Graziano]

And that's a crime, I think That's a crime.

[Bonnie]

Okay, good.

[Renee Graziano]

Because what I know now, first of all, I would kill somebody. I have three granddaughters. You're not making it home like. No. You're warped in the brain that you want to be with a little girl.

[Bonnie]

Yeah, because. Good. I'm glad.

[Renee Graziano]

Regardless, the woman could be grown. You know, physically, we could look a certain way, but mentally, no. And that's where they condition you. You're conditioned in your early teen years. You know what I mean? So for me, it was e. Like, I felt popular, I felt special. I felt I wasn't ugly. Yes. I felt I. But it was a secret. So it's still, you know, it's not fair to me. And I just stayed in a. You know, looking back, it's so sad. It's so sad. I could have been so much more in life, you know, I could have had the healthy relationship. But no, I. You know, I went from my first boyfriend to that, like, relationship for a few years when I was in my 6, 16 to 18, to meeting my son's father when I was 20, getting engaged a month and 19 days after I met him, because I wanted this. And my father said, you want it? I'm gonna give you what you want. Now you're gonna let. When you make your bed, you gotta lay in it. And my father didn't want me to marry him because he wasn't Italian, he was Puerto Rican.

[Bonnie]

Did you ever experience abuse in the house? Was that. No, there was never any abuse.

[Renee Graziano]

No. Always got hit.

[Bonnie]

I'm trying to figure out where your attachment style came from.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay. I don't know, because my father never hit my mother.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

Ever. But what I do know is this. At 16, I found out about an affair my father had. Mom, I'm sorry if you ever hear this. And I remember what I did, and I lost it. Like, lost it because I have the most magnificent mother in the world. Like Raquel Welch, gorgeous and such a good woman. But in the same thing, I didn't want to be her anymore. I wanted to be her, and then I didn't want to be her because to me, it was weak. And I just said, that's what's going to happen. And I ended up being the same damn thing, just with a big mouth. So my father never hit my mother. Ever? Yeah, Ever. That's, like, just not happening in my household. Lana got hit a lot because Lana was really bad. Like, she would rob the car all the time and, you know, like, flip.

[Bonnie]

The cars and trying to hang you off chandeliers.

[Renee Graziano]

Absolutely. Had me swinging off banisters, like. But I think for me, I just wanted something.

[Bonnie]

You wanted to be loved.

[Renee Graziano]

And I had such a hole in my soul. I was born with a hole in my soul. Literally. I was born with a heartworm. I think that was the hole. Yeah. And I. I would have done anything. Anything in the war. Oh, God, I'm gonna get so emotional right now.

[Bonnie]

It's okay.

[Renee Graziano]

I would have done anything for someone to say I love you.

[Bonnie]

Looking back, do you feel like you finally found that love within yourself?

[Renee Graziano]

Not yet.

[Bonnie]

You're still looking for it. Well, I love you.

[Renee Graziano]

I love you, too.

[Bonnie]

You want a hug? Okay.

[Renee Graziano]

I'm so sorry. I just.

[Bonnie]

Don't.

[Renee Graziano]

No, I think I'm not gonna cry today.

[Bonnie]

I got you.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, you are so. You know. Thank you. You know, I. You know what's funny? Now I have it with my grandchildren, you know, and they love me.

[Bonnie]

Oh, I bet. You are, like, the ultimate gmo. You're like glamour.

[Renee Graziano]

That's. Yeah, that's the name of my company, too. I just. They actually. I play superhero. I. I do all these things with the kids, and it's this feeling of. It's a different love.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And it does.

[Bonnie]

Unconditional.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. It does fill the soul. You know, it. It is now for me, it's. Things are changing and.

[Bonnie]

Do we have any tissue? Mimi?

[Renee Graziano]

I usually travel with a box.

[Bonnie]

We'll get you some.

[Renee Graziano]

I'll rip the eyelashes off in five minutes. I don't even care.

[Bonnie]

The shoes off.

[Renee Graziano]

I don't care. Yeah.

[Bonnie]

You know, I think it's a journey. I think life is a journey of literally learning how to fall in love with yourself.

[Renee Graziano]

Yep.

[Bonnie]

It really is. And I. For women like us who have grown up with trauma and the women at home that are listening, like, that's really all we've ever searched for in this world, is to give love and to receive love. And it starts with us.

[Renee Graziano]

It does. And what I'm finding out now is nobody's going to do it for me but me.

[Bonnie]

Absolutely.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, and that's. That's the sad part, because I know how I love on somebody. So I'm like, why? You know, where are these people? And my sister Jennifer would always say to me, renee, your expectations of people are way too high. Nobody's you. No one will ever do the things you do. You pay people's bills before you'll even pay your own. You'll take care of everyone. Strangers on the street and not yourself. And I think that's what it was I've always been trying to save a life, but it was my life I had to save. And I just felt like that my life wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough. Why should I be alive? Why should I have all these things? Even when I was young, I would give everything out. Everything my father'd give me, I'd give everybody else because I felt like God gave me so much. Why would I not share it? You know, not everybody gets the lifestyle that I. I lived as a child. I had a fur coat at seven diamond name plates. Like, I. I think I came out of the womb as a mob wife. Yeah. Like, you know, with the. With the big jewelry and the whole bit, you know? And now I look back, and I just. I have three granddaughters, and I have one grandson. And all I want them to do, all I want for them, I should say, is to know that they are so loved and nothing matters and nobody will ever hurt them. And I say that. And I don't care if the feds were listening in on this one. I would go right to the wall for them. You know what I mean? As every parent should for their child. Every parent. Any parent that doesn't, shouldn't be a parent. That's how I view it.

[Bonnie]

Did you ever pour that. Feel like you poured that love into.

[Renee Graziano]

AJ you know what, aj? AJ is. Is very loved. Very, very, very loved. He doesn't really show me that, though, anymore. I. I know I hurt my son. I definitely did. AJ witnessed some stuff that he doesn't talk about ever. So when AJ was, like, 5, and it was November 29, and his father gave me a really bad beating, and his face was pressed between the two little lats on the stairs, and his eyes never left mine as this man dragged me down the stairs backwards. And I just remember looking at him, and I said, I got to get him out of here. And I went to church, and there was a piece of paper in the church, and it said, after the long, dark storm, there will be light. And there was no other piece of paper in the whole church that said that. And I'm all over the church like, oh, my God. God's talking to me like, I know this man's having a conversation with me. No facts. I left the next day. I pack. What's crazy? I took my son my clothes and my television.

[Bonnie]

When you're in those situations, you do crazy shit.

[Renee Graziano]

My tv. No, because I swear, the TV meant something to me all my life, like, I wanted to be Lucille Ball. That was my Dream. Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball with Blondie and Joan Jett. Twist. That's what. That's all I wanted to be when I grew up. You know what I mean? But then again, I wanted to be Diane Carroll. But then my mother told me I couldn't be Diane Carroll because she was a black woman. And I argued with her for, like, years. Yes, I can. She's like, no, you can't, Renee. You don't understand. Understand. But, yeah, I left him right there, and I. I left with A.J. i went home. My father was like, okay, no problem. Stay. You can't go back now. And what's crazy is my ex husband's last name is Pagan. So for someone who believes in God so much. Right.

[Bonnie]

I've always thought that.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay. I got married in a church called Our lady of Pity.

[Bonnie]

Oh, my goodness.

[Renee Graziano]

A black crow flew in my church and sat above me on my wedding tape.

[Bonnie]

Wow.

[Renee Graziano]

I married the devil. I. I kid you. He's the spawn of the devil.

[Bonnie]

How did you guys meet? Where did this come from? Because I read somewhere that he was a friend of your father's.

[Renee Graziano]

No, not at all. He's a liar, okay? He wishes. I met him on May 7, May 17 of 1990. He had just come home from doing, like, four years for, like, gun trafficking. So for me, it's like, oh, PSI report. I love it. Oh, my God. He's gonna fit in my family just fine.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, And I remember going home and saying, dad, I got a boyfriend. I want you to meet him. And he's like, what's his name? I'm like, ask him when he gets here. He goes, what does that mean, Renee? Because I couldn't say his name was Hector.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

I didn't know what was gonna happen.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

So when he got to the house, my father goes, what's your. Goes, Hector. He goes, hector, what's that? What are you. So he said, I'm Puerto Rican. And he goes, no, your name is Junior. That's where he got that name from. From my father. And because he was in jail with a friend of my father's who was Joe Messina, who was the mob boss of the Bonanno crime family who also became a fucking rat. And he's. He's dead now, too. My father gave him a pass. He started abusing me immediately. Immediately.

[Bonnie]

And you were how old? 20.

[Renee Graziano]

I was 20. I got engaged a month and 19 days after I met him, I said, daddy, this is what I want. And my father always gave me what I wanted.

[Bonnie]

So even getting, you know, beat by him.

[Renee Graziano]

My father never knew, never told him. He's my abuser. And when I say that, I mean it in every way. Shape of the word. So whatever comes before abuse. Emotionally, mentally, sexually, physically, that's my abuser.

[Bonnie]

I've heard you say that he was your rapist.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, he.

[Bonnie]

It's hard to believe that people give this man a platform.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, it's hard to believe that women don't report this because you don't know it's a crime when you're married. I didn't know that that's a crime. You know, if your husband comes home and he's a little bit forceful and you have to submit, that's a crime. I didn't know that. And I had a therapist. Her name was Renee, and she was the one who told me, no, that's rape, Renee. And I was like, I don't think it's called that where I'm from. And she's like, no, that's what it's called, period.

[Bonnie]

What would he do?

[Renee Graziano]

He was just. The drugs were bad. He is an alcoholic and an addiction. So he would just come home from. We had a strip club, my father's and his girlfriend worked there. Her name was Danielle.

[Bonnie]

Whose girlfriend?

[Renee Graziano]

My ex husband.

[Bonnie]

Junior's. Okay.

[Renee Graziano]

Filthy bitch. Filthy. And he would just constantly compare me to her. And he was very forceful from being drunk and high. And I really didn't have many choices.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

I also didn't understand. And I think I didn't understand a lot because I was never really developed in that sense of the word. Physically, I was very developed, but I wasn't mature enough to be a baby. Yeah, you're. Absolutely. But I was doing it from 13, so, you know what I mean? I figured, oh, I'm gonna make a guy like me. I know what I could do. And every guy liked me, trust me. But not every guy wanted me one. It wasn't just the fact that you had to deal with my father. I don't. Shut up.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

You. You're gonna follow suit.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

If you can't equal up to my father, you're gonna follow suit.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

And I'm gonna lead. And that's really what it was. And my ex husband resented me for that because guys would kiss me hello before him. So, you know that mob thing, they all kiss each other. They wouldn't kiss him before me. And I kept saying to him, but you're not Anthony's daughter. I am.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

So I am to be treated that way because I am the, you know, mob royalty if you, if you.

[Bonnie]

And he's also not Italian.

[Renee Graziano]

No. And that was the thing. Then he became so close with my father. My father loved this man. Oh, my God, he loved this man. And he was going to give him our last name so he could imagine this. And this man ratted on my father, beat his daughter. The abuse I went through, he shattered my coccyx bone. Broke. Cracked a rib, punctured a kidney, broke my cheekbone, like. And I would never tell Renee. I. Yeah, I never told.

[Bonnie]

Why would he do these things? Like, he just would come home drunk.

[Renee Graziano]

He was just. Because he would say really mean things to me and. Oh, God, this is so bad. Sorry, Lois. His mother's Lois. She died. She was heroin addict. Died, hiv. So he would be really mean to me and I'd be like, your mother's. Oh, true. It's true. Your mother's this or your mother's that. Because that's my only defense because I'm getting smacked. So what else could I do? I'm like a little peanut. And this man is 6ft. Professional boxer.

[Bonnie]

No man should ever hit a woman. No matter what he was, he was just evil.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. I don't want. I know that he had his own trauma, but I don't like to give him any little bit of grace whatsoever because he doesn't deserve it. Because you could walk out that door. You could. You. You walked out that door and gave your girlfriend my car and left me while I was pregnant, throwing up, my body shut down. I lost 25 pounds in my fourth month. I. My body, I collapsed and I stayed in the hospital for like at least two weeks. And he made me take a cab home. Like, the things, like a lot of it's flashing right now, so forgive me, you know, because my ADD is also active right now. And it's like, oh, I. Oh my God. Oh my. What was I doing? I could have had anything and anyone.

[Bonnie]

I went through it too. I went through a severely abusive relationship. So everything that I'm hearing from you just breaks my heart because I too stayed, no matter what. And it was like we had the most amazing sex and like, I would try, he was always sorry after he would do it. And then now this man is trying to gaslight me because he knows I'm writing a book.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, good. So where was his address?

[Bonnie]

And it's telling me that everything that happened is embellished and that I'm lying and that he. He never hit me closed fisted, but he bopped me in my nose, you know, like it's like the. The. These men are just crazy. So to me, you know, Hector sounds a lot like my ex.

[Renee Graziano]

Well, yeah, because they're. What's the word?

[Bonnie]

What are they called?

[Renee Graziano]

Narcissist. Narcissist. My ex husband. The sex was horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. You should be embarrassed. But, you know, it's so crazy. His girlfriend. He has a girlfriend now. It's, like, stalks me, of course. I'm like, bitch, please have a seat.

[Bonnie]

You're the one that got away.

[Renee Graziano]

Like, please have a seat.

[Bonnie]

He probably triangulates you with her.

[Renee Graziano]

He just knocked her out cold in a parking lot in Staten Island. Maybe, like, six months ago, he moved out here. He lives in Lake Tahoe, and if I had his address, I'd give it to you for anybody who wanted to ring the bell. I don't care. So, like, I really don't care. Like, the. They could come and say, renee, you're not allowed to say that. Be like, yes, I am.

[Bonnie]

So let's rewind it back. So you. You're going through this horrific time with him. You're pregnant. You know. You know, you have AJ. AJ's having to witness the abuse. When do you guys finally break? Because I know on Mob Wives, you guys ended up getting back together.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, so it was Novemb 30th, 1999.

[Bonnie]

I love that she remembers dates.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. Oh, I have a thing with numbers. Okay. It was. Yep, 1999. Because I remember for New Year's, I remember that Prince song playing in my head. I left. And then I found out that the affair he was having at that time was with his sister's friend, who I always said it was, and she was pregnant. So here's this one. So now I show up at court. Oh, I didn't know she was pregnant yet. So I. I go to court. He gets pinched. I go to court. I have to put the house up for him. And he's there with her. And I'm sitting there, nice, and I'm looking, and my cousin Alexis, who's this tiny, tiny little blonde. We call her Barbie. And she says, renee. I go, there's a ring on her finger. He's married to me. I get up and the judge goes, who's here for, you know, Hector Pagan. I go, me. He goes, in your name. I go, renee Pagan. He goes, well, then who's the woman that he's with? That was one. I walk out of the courtroom, and I remember getting into a fight with him in front of the federal building, that he took me by my throat and dangled me in the street.

[Bonnie]

While you're pregnant?

[Renee Graziano]

No, she was now pregnant. She was now pregnant. I was. No, AJ was already born. He was having this affair.

[Bonnie]

Sorry.

[Renee Graziano]

And then I find out he's engaged. Two weeks later, my son says to me he was with his dad. I was away. I had a boyfriend at the time, and a wise guy boyfriend, too. He was cute. And AJ calls me and says that. What was her name, Vicky, Made him pee in the tub because she was on the toilet bowl and he was playing in the snow. And I said, okay, Mommy will be there in no time. You were in the bathroom with my kid. That's a no. I made it home from three hours away in, like, two hours. And I gave her a beating outside the house. And I'm not a fighter at all. And that's how I ended up finding out she was pregnant, because he said, I'll kill you. She's having a baby. And I didn't even know she was pregnant. And that's how I found out. So you're married to me, engaged, having a child, still beating me. And this is where we're at. So at that point, I was like, I'm done. He went to jail for eight years. I had nothing to do with him. No communication. I then started working for 50 Cent, and I, you know, my life started to pick up, and I had this really fun and exciting life. All of a sudden, I was experiencing everything from different races and culture, and I was like, in heaven. I was like, candy, shit. Yeah, that was me. And matter of fact, my friend that lives here, you know who I'm talking about, the witch. I'll tell you afterwards. So he came home and he then got a girlfriend.

[Bonnie]

As mob wives going on.

[Renee Graziano]

No, no, no. He came home in eight. So mob wise happened in 10, 2007.

[Bonnie]

You had an overdose, didn't you?

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah.

[Bonnie]

Can we talk about that? Because this was before Mob Wives even started.

[Renee Graziano]

Yep. So, okay, so I. From the damage in my back, they put me on Oxy Aedes, and I was hooked, I think, in a week. And I was on two Oxy 80s ready, six Roxies, Xanax, water pills, diet pills, everything the doctor gave me.

[Bonnie]

Oh, my gosh.

[Renee Graziano]

Doctor gave me.

[Bonnie]

That's enough to kill you.

[Renee Graziano]

It did, obviously.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And then on July 4th in 2007, I OD'd for the first time. My. They were like four cop cars. I was a wild lunatic. You couldn't contain me, nothing.

[Bonnie]

Can you tell me on that day what happened?

[Renee Graziano]

My girlfriend Nancy, I said, To Nancy. You got to take me to my mom's. I'm gonna die, and I know it. I said, I have to get off drugs. She took. She got me there. She gave my mother everything that I had. And I hit the floor. And that was it. And my mother did not understand addiction and was embarrassed. So she put me in a 72 hour holdover as opposed to detox. And I was sexually assaulted in the mental ward by a man named Stanley Guido On July 7th at 4:35 in the afternoon, two hours before I was being released. And then I was straight jacketed after that. And so they.

[Bonnie]

Let me get this right. Your mom has you admitted Committed. Committed. And a man forces himself on you?

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, he was a patient.

[Bonnie]

Oh, he was a patient.

[Renee Graziano]

He's a patient.

[Bonnie]

Okay.

[Renee Graziano]

And I remember there was this young black boy there, and they kept giving him so much Thorazine. And I would give him my cookies because I knew it would change the chemicals. Like, so I know I'm not crazy, you know, so. But I saw what they were doing to people and it was breaking my heart. So they drugged me. And the man came in my room and held me down. That's why I like, I. I shake on my left side. So he held me down. He sexually assaulted me. I remember, like losing it. And they wouldn't get me a gynecologist. They wouldn't call 91 1. So I found a way to set a fire. And I knew if the police, if the fire department came, the police department would come. The police department. The man was Detective Gorham. He was the head of svu, but he used to be organized crime and knew my father. And he said, tell me what happened. I told him. He. The man admitted it. This. I have a police report that backs this up. And he tried to orally violate me. The man, the cop turned his face and I did what I did. And they straight jacketed me because I like attacked him. Like, you couldn't get me off of him. You couldn't. And the man said he did it. So now the thera, the psychiatrist tells my mother I'm lying. My mother believes the doctor because she thinks I'm trying to get out. They kept me there for two weeks. I spent my 37th birthday with a one on one in Staten Island Hospital. And it changed me for the rest of my life. It changed me for the rest of my life because it was different than the abuse from my husband. This you took from me, he did that. But it was different because he was part of my it was my relationship. This stranger did it to me.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And they started giving me 8 milligrams a day in Xanax. 8 milligrams a day.

[Bonnie]

So much.

[Renee Graziano]

Even at 125 pounds, even 2 milligrams is a lot.

[Bonnie]

I used to take literally a p. A quarter of the Xanax, like a piece of a piece.

[Renee Graziano]

Like, it takes me 4 milligrams to knock me out. My tolerance is so high to drugs. So high.

[Bonnie]

Wild.

[Renee Graziano]

And that's what happened to me. And it changed me.

[Bonnie]

I'm so sorry.

[Renee Graziano]

It's okay. You know what? I actually have some forgiveness there. And I think it's because when I realized it was my fault, and what I say it was my fault is what he did to me wasn't my fault, but it was my fault. I was there because if I didn't do the drugs, I wouldn't have OD'd. If I didn't OD, he couldn't have done that. So that's mine. I have to own it. And when I owned it, it was like, oh, okay, I get it. And it didn't feel as bad. I didn't smell them anymore. It took me years. I was like, maybe three or four years, I'd smell this human. I would scratch my skin off my body, my neck. Like, there's parts of my wives. Like, my neck would be ripped apart because I. The. The feeling went over. Like, the pains in my body when he tried to. Like he forcefully pushes fist inside of me. Like, I'd get pain. And then all of a sudden, it was gone. It was just gone. I dealt with it. I don't know, maybe it's because I prayed so much on it. Like, I would always just ask God, just please just take this one. Like, you give me so much. And I know they say, like, you can. Only God gives you what you can handle. But, like, I had a time out. I said, God, yeah, I'm done. I'm like, I'm tapping out, dude. Like, there. I'm done. I want to die. I just want to die now. And that's what it was. I just wanted to die for a really long time, but I was too chicken to do it. And I'm Catholic and it's a sin, so I would never, you know, do it, but it's been in my head, you know what I mean? And then after I lost my father, that was it for me. Then I really.

[Bonnie]

So when you got out of the mental, we're gonna circle back. We'll get to The. This is when your dad passes. When you got out of the mental hospital and you were just at that breaking point of like, this is enough, I've had enough. When you got out, were you able to stay sober or did that. What happened to you in that hospital? Just.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was. That was the start of Xanax addiction.

[Bonnie]

Right?

[Renee Graziano]

That was it. So Xanax, I would say I'm sober at least nine months. A year. Absolutely.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

My using is a little different. I'm definitely an addict, but I'll use maybe two days cocaine, two days. And then I won't use for like two months Xanax. I was using like consecutive. And it was like to the point where I couldn't feel, so I couldn't think, I couldn't feel. It was great.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, my God.

[Bonnie]

It's the. It's the most wonderful drug in the world. I love.

[Renee Graziano]

If you use it correctly, it is a good drug.

[Bonnie]

I didn't use it correctly.

[Renee Graziano]

Right.

[Bonnie]

I overdosed on it twice.

[Renee Graziano]

I sorry.

[Bonnie]

Loved Xanax. So people that don't understand, people that don't have dysregulated nervous systems don't understand the feeling of chewing on a Xanax. That was my favorite thing. Or putting it under my tongue and.

[Renee Graziano]

Just letting it go. That taste is so horrible.

[Bonnie]

It's. It's horrific. But the feeling you get is euphoric.

[Renee Graziano]

That's why my. That's why there were two and three in my mouth at a time. It was just like, okay, you know, oh, wait, in 15 minutes, minutes, I'm not gonna feel anything. And I have. I suffer with severe insomnia since my 20s. So I don't sleep. I go two, three days, no sleep.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

I was hospitalized. I've woken up under general anesthesia. I've woken up under Propofol. Like, I mean, something happens to me when they put me out.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And I think I'm so afraid that I like the adrenaline pumps and I'd get back up. And I think also the not sleeping had to do with the lifestyle, you know what I mean? Not the drugs, but the lifestyle of waiting up for my father or waiting up for my ex husband to come home by the window. Always waiting, waiting, waiting. And it's just. It's so much trauma, man. Like, I'm just figuring it out now.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. I think healing trauma, you're never healed. It's literally a journey. We're gonna have to figure out our trauma till the day we're not here anymore. Like that. It's a journey.

[Renee Graziano]

My son has a hard time with this one. He's like, why can't you just stop?

[Bonnie]

Men are wired differently.

[Renee Graziano]

I'm like, you know what? They are, but they're not. Okay. They don't share with us enough. But I think they're just. They could be just as or weaker. Yeah, I definitely think so. Like, look at a man that gets traumatized by a woman. He becomes a creep afterwards. You know what I mean? We don't become creepy. We just.

[Bonnie]

I'm not laughing at men becoming creeps. I'm laughing at how she says stuff.

[Renee Graziano]

I'm laughing at men becoming creeps. I am. I said it nice. Stand on it. I just think, you know, for my son, he's so. He's so strong.

[Bonnie]

And he's also probably super empathic and super sensitive because normally when you're.

[Renee Graziano]

No, no, the kid. No, not at all. No. He's so cold.

[Bonnie]

Oh, he got his dad.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, after his father did what he did, AJ had a. Like, be cold because we don't know.

[Bonnie]

It just hurt him too bad.

[Renee Graziano]

AJ had unfortunately suffered a serious situation where somebody hurt him very badly because of his father.

[Bonnie]

Oh, my gosh.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. 14 staples.

[Bonnie]

Oh, my gosh. And this was after he ratted on your dad. So let's. Let's rewind back to that. So, okay, you know, 2007, you had the overdose, this horrific incident with the mental hospital, and then when does mob wipes come knocking? 2008, 2009.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, so after what happened to me in the hospital, I worked for Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. That was like. Like a great.

[Bonnie]

Was Alec cool? Cuz I've heard so many horror stories about.

[Renee Graziano]

He was great with me. Yeah, always. Tina is my favorite person on the face of the earth.

[Bonnie]

Seems like a sweetie.

[Renee Graziano]

She would always say to me, you're going to be famous one day, Renee. You're going to be famous one day. And I'd be like, okay, Tina, we got to get diet pill, water, pill. What are we doing?

[Bonnie]

You know?

[Renee Graziano]

And I'll tell you why I say that. Behind the bright lights and adrenaline of pro sports is an equally exciting world.

[Bonnie]

Of negotiations and deal making. That's what we cover each week on our podcast, the Deal. I'm Alex Rodriguez, former baseball player turned business executive. And I'm Jason Kelly, chief correspondent for Bloomberg Originals. Over the next couple months, we'll hear from all stars like Jay Williams.

[Renee Graziano]

I want to be an owner one day.

[Bonnie]

Billie Jean King. Learn the business and so many more. Listen to the deal wherever you get your podcast.

[Renee Graziano]

Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to.

[Bonnie]

Kids instantly, set up chores, automate allowance.

[Renee Graziano]

And keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications, kids learn to earn, save, and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their.

[Bonnie]

Kids are learning about money.

[Renee Graziano]

With guardrails in place. Sign up for greenlight [e-mail] wondery that's greenlight.com wondery so 2010 mob wife starts. My sister Jennifer says, renee, you can't be on the show. Jennifer actually is the EP and creator of Mob Wife.

[Bonnie]

And that's your sister?

[Renee Graziano]

Yes. And she said, you can't be on the show. I can't deal with you. I'm like, well, could I do wardrobe? What could I do? And all along, she had a plan for me to be on it but wasn't telling me. And so, like, a few days before, she was like, that's what you get. I was like, okay. So Mob Wives kicks off. My ex husband is home at the time. I have plastic surgery. Season one gone terribly wrong. I die.

[Bonnie]

Yeah, we're gonna talk about that.

[Renee Graziano]

I lose. Yep, I lose 6.3 pints of blood mercen through my body. Read my last rights twice. Vanco. Vancomycin resistant.

[Bonnie]

It was you were having. So you. Okay, so the show starts. You're doing the show, Correct. Hector comes home.

[Renee Graziano]

Yes.

[Bonnie]

Okay. You decide to get your body done.

[Renee Graziano]

Yes.

[Bonnie]

And this is on the show. This is all playing out on the show. So if you guys are not Mob Wife's fanatics, go and binge the series, you will not be disappointed. But take me on that journey. You decide to go get your body done. Did you get your body done for him?

[Renee Graziano]

I got my body done so nobody could talk about me anymore. And I thought I was going to have this fabulous figure. The doctor was. Was another evil individual, and he decided he was going to give me a full body lift at 165 pounds. That doesn't even make sense. You're not supposed to do that to somebody so small. So I went in for a bbl on a tummy tuck. I ended up my ass was even more concave. Now at this point, I'm dying. I have mrsa. I have a hole this big in my back.

[Bonnie]

So you go home from the surgery.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, so the surgery happened on June 11 in 2011. I go home, My mother comes to the hospital. Okay, no Sorry. Okay. Surgery day. I go in, he does. He does a seven hour surgery in like four and a half hours. They put the garment on me, they rip me open, I bleed out. Emergency, second surgery. Come out, never calls 911. I lost 6.3 pints of blood. The next day, my mom comes and she hears me and she comes running and I said, I'm dying. And she's like, what do you mean? I said, I'm dying. And I was cold, I was blue. I remember the woman in the ambulance saying, stay with me, stay with me, stay with me. And I was like, just let me go. Just let me like. And they were like, you have to have a transfusion now. I think I'm gonna die because I have to have a four pint transfusion. I don't want the blood. They take my rights away from me. I have the transfusion, I'm in the hospital for a week. I go home and I smell something. So I'm like, must be the antibiotics, you know, because for females that.

[Bonnie]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Renee Graziano]

So I said to the doc, I called the doctor, I said, hey, you know, I have 101. Phoebe's like, get to the hospital. I said, okay. He's like, I'll meet you there. I get to the hospital, the hospital's 10 minutes for me. Within 20 minutes, I'm at 135. The doctor comes in and his name is Dr. Raj. He touches me. And MRSA just was everywhere, everywhere. So now they have me like in like a little incubation thing because nobody can come around me now. You know, I could kill somebody with MRSA or whatever. They start with the vancomycin. I'm vancomycin resistant.

[Bonnie]

No.

[Renee Graziano]

Four days. Read my last rights twice. Dr. Addie, his name is. He was a doctor from Africa who works with HIV patients. So now I think I have hiv. This is like, you know, you gotta understand.

[Bonnie]

Well, you don't know. They don't tell you what.

[Renee Graziano]

No infectious disease. The man's coming in from Africa. What the. I'm like, oh, my God, it's over. And he comes up with a cocktail. And I remember being upstairs and my father calling, didn't speak to me and my sister. These are mob wives.

[Bonnie]

Your dad was mad. Yeah, we'll talk about that too. Let's finish the story about that.

[Renee Graziano]

So he was away. So my father calls and the priest said, you know, you should say goodbye to your daughter. And he said, what, has she got you bullshitted too, Father? And my mother said, no, Renee's dying like It's a real thing. She's vancomycin resistant. They can't fix her. And then I think my father might have threatened the doctor. And the next day, I was on my road to recovery, and they said that I've defied medical history. My plastic surgeon never showed up. Ever.

[Bonnie]

Wow.

[Renee Graziano]

Yep. And then there's a lot that goes into that story with the doctor, which I'm not gonna touch on that because we've had so many damn lawsuits over it. My ex husband then comes back, comes to the hospital. Never forget it. And he brought me this Rolex. And it was the one Rolex I didn't have. And he gave it to me. And he said, I love you. And in my brain, I said, I had to die for him to love me. Mind you, this is my abuser. I go back with him. I move him in. I come home from the hospital.

[Bonnie]

This is all on the show. Everything playing out on the show.

[Renee Graziano]

This is real life.

[Bonnie]

None of this is scripted.

[Renee Graziano]

Hell, you couldn't script me. The only thing fake about me is my nose.

[Bonnie]

Right?

[Renee Graziano]

You know what I mean? Like, my ass is mine. It's just fat from a different part of my body.

[Bonnie]

I say the same thing.

[Renee Graziano]

My nose is not mine. Yeah, modified.

[Bonnie]

And then let's. Let's. Let's cut back real quick. Your dad did stop talking to you guys because. Because didn't he get shelved from the mob or. They said he was shelved, technically. Okay.

[Renee Graziano]

He wasn't at that. This particular point. Not at all.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

It wasn't until he came home. And I'll. I'll touch a little bit on that. Okay, so my ex husband now says, I love you. I want to be with you, blah, blah, blah. Okay, great.

[Bonnie]

And I think there was a. An episode where you even said to him, like, you never say I love you to me.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, listen, this. This creep. This creep.

[Bonnie]

Did you think. You think that he did all this because he knew?

[Renee Graziano]

I know he did. I know he did. He only came back to me to set my father up. My father came home August. My father was gone. And I wrote my father a letter before he came home. And. And you could verify this with my mother and said, dad, you're gonna go back to jail right before Thanksgiving. I know it. Please don't talk to anybody. Don't, don't, don't. Day before Thanksgiving, they took my father away. And I knew it. I wrote it. I knew it. Like when I tell you my premonitions are so real. I knew it. And I. I just Knew something wasn't right. But I was so high. Because I'm on Dilaudid now. 8 milligrams. Like, I'm sorry. 6 milligrams. Every time I take my Dilaudid, it's 6 milligrams. I had been sent home with a medicine ball. So I had the picking, you know, to my heart. Every day. I had to do this. A nurse, three times a day, like, changing my bandages, all of this. He comes back to me. I love you. I love you. I love you. This, that, and the third. We're going to therapy. All of this.

[Bonnie]

He even committed to therapy.

[Renee Graziano]

Well, he was cooperating with the government since 2006 because he's not even a real man and can't tell you that. But I know his paperwork, so I'll give you that. So we could put that up there, too, because since 2006, he's been a rat fucking cocksucker. Excuse my mouth. He gets me very angry.

[Bonnie]

Is that why your dad went away?

[Renee Graziano]

Yes.

[Bonnie]

Okay. So nobody knew that it was.

[Renee Graziano]

No. So this is so November 20th. Right before November 21st, my father was in the hospital. My dad had cancer. Prostate, bladder, urethra, kidney. And I was going to kill myself. I'll never forget it. I took Seroquel. I'm like, I can't live like this no more. So dramatic. Seroquel. Where was I going? Anyway? My father ran from the hospital to the house. And I remember my white marble floors. There was blood everywhere. And he was like, what's wrong with you? What's going on? I was like, dad, something's wrong. I don't know what it is, but something's wrong. I can't. I. I can't take it. But I'm so polluted, mentally with so much Deloitted and Xanax. And he's giving me cocaine. And I'm just like, hi. And I watched his behavior. He was acting strange, going outside for phone calls. I think he's cheating on me.

[Bonnie]

Right, Right. Because he was always going through his phone.

[Renee Graziano]

Exactly. He was always cheating on me with Drita, actually. Right. What happens is this. He turns himself in. My son comes home November 21st, and he hands me a letter. And he said, this is from Dad. I go, where's your father? We didn't talk for two days before because I was fighting with him and I thought he was cheating.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

He turned himself in because he couldn't take it anymore. So I read this letter. He says, you know, I got pinched nine years. Da da da da. Me. I'M like, I'll put the house up. Whatever. I called home. I said, dad, I can't find him. My father, I swear to God, you could see the phone conversation. And I said. He said, mind your fucking business. Get off the phone. And I was like, what are you talking. Get off the phone, Renee. Don't get on the phone today. And I'm like, dad, I can't find him in this, in the system. Renee. Renee, please. Renee. And I couldn't understand what was happening. And then I call him back. I'm like, dad, Dad, I can't find him. And I hear my sister Jennifer's son open the door. And he said, poppy, it's the police. And I said, dad, I'm coming. I'm on my way. And he said, renee, stay home. You're gonna. I'll go to jail for murder. Don't come here. And I hung up the phone, and I knew it was over. He was home three months after 12 years. And the next day in the newspaper, it read, mob wife, star, husband's a snitch. My whole life ended. My identity was wiped. I was nothing at that moment. But I got sober that day for, like, almost a year. And.

[Bonnie]

This is all playing out on the show. And, I mean, you're having to not only deal with this in your own personal life, you're literally having to live this with millions of people having an opinion. The first thing I thought of whenever that was going down was, is that what maybe brought you and Karen a little bit closer because you kind of had to go through.

[Renee Graziano]

So Karen and I, our fight, the first fight we had on the show, it was more planned because we were good. Karen. I stayed with Karen before I. The show started and I got sober and she. I lived with her for a while, and she helped me out. So that night we had to do that scene. It turned real when she. When I had to say what I had to say about her father, and she had to say, well, you can't think for yourself. And it was, like, real then. But the love we had for each other was not going to go anywhere. We were still going to stand on it. We just had to say these things to one another. So when Karen came to my house, I actually. Oh, I would be. I was the one that would say, don't talk to the daughter. And then people were doing it to my son. And it was Karen that. That helped my son out because I. Yeah, I had a nervous breakdown that day in the house. Karen was there. I. I collapsed in the bathroom. Then I ended up spending two weeks in the hospital afterwards from a nervous breakdown. All these things were happening to me. Like, you know, it's like this. Everything is happening. Everything's happening and happening and happening. And you can't put a finger on anything because you're not. I'm not okay up here, you know, for all that time I was. I was using. Not just what I was prescribed, because I had mrsa, so I literally had a hole in my back. The pain was excruciating. It was down to my spine, like this deep into my back. But now I'm on cocaine. And then I stopped. Immediate. Everything stopped that day that I found everything out. So when I get home from the hospital, my money's gone. I'm like, where's my money? And I take his watch collection. Oh, this rat bastard. I take his watch collection and I go to the jeweler and I said, listen, I gotta pay my taxes. I'm screwed. This man left me with car notes, this, that and the third.

[Bonnie]

And he goes, FBI take your money?

[Renee Graziano]

No.

[Bonnie]

Okay.

[Renee Graziano]

Things just disappeared on his behalf because he said he left me everything. He didn't leave me anything but crumbs. The crumbs in my bed. And embarrassed and humiliated is what he left me me. So what? The jeweler comes and says, renee, sit down. I go, for what? Just give me the money. I gotta go. He said, renee, sit down. The watches are all fake and they all have wires in them. I took my watch off. He said, take that watch off. The watch he gave me in the hospital. Bunny had a wire in it.

[Bonnie]

Get the out of here, Renee.

[Renee Graziano]

My son shouldn't see tomorrow. How about that?

[Bonnie]

What a piece of shit.

[Renee Graziano]

So when he's sitting there doing these interviews, he's a fucking liar. He's a disgrace. He doesn't deserve to breathe. He put my father, who wanted to give him my last name so he could be the gangster he wanted to be. And you're a rat. You're a pussy. You're a pussy. That's what you are. You got your son hurt. You beat your wife. You're a. I have no respect for a man like that. I have no respect for any man, any woman, or any man that does those type of things to another person. Because that's disgusting. You murdered somebody. Not my father. You killed him, but you put my father away. Because you are the murderer. Because you couldn't do your time. You. That's how I feel about it.

[Bonnie]

Good Lord. Yeah, that is heavy. So the watch he gave you while you're Laying on your death.

[Renee Graziano]

That's right.

[Bonnie]

Telling you he loves you. Has a wire.

[Renee Graziano]

Wire in it.

[Bonnie]

I don't even.

[Renee Graziano]

That's right. And I haven't spoke on this. Like, I. I said it on Mob Wives. You'll see it. He wrote how he was going to murder me. And I read that letter on purpose on television with Ramona because I was afraid at that point. At that point, I said, this guy's a killer. I know what he is. So it is possible I didn't have my father anymore. He was in jail. My father's also now very, very sick at the time, you know, with the cancer. And I'm saying to myself, what am I going to do? Okay. I. I gotta use my brain. Everybody's like, get a restraining order. I'm like, I can't. I'm a rat. And everybody was like, no, you're not. And I'm like, no, I'm just gonna read the letter. And maybe that was a little snitchy. Okay?

[Bonnie]

I don't think it was snitchy.

[Renee Graziano]

I don't think it was. I had to protect myself. I had to. And I had to show that me and my son are unified and against that man. So my son is my, like. Like my life. I'm gonna die for my child and my father, you know? And I remember Jennifer saying that day, shut the. Shut it down. Shut it down. I said, don't you shut this show down. We're gonna show every little bit of this, because this is what this life is about.

[Bonnie]

Literally.

[Renee Graziano]

It's not about who could dress the prettiest. It's about death. It's about murder. It's about. It's about betrayal. And nobody has been betrayed more than me. From mob wives to the men. And I say mob wise because of the one mob wife, which isn't Karen or Ramona that you interviewed without saying her name. She's no good. Neither. That's betrayal. You want to use party, Have a good time. But you want to tell on me. But I'm not going to tell on you. But you want to tell on me. So you expect me to hide your lies while you tell my truth? You. That's where I'm at in life.

[Bonnie]

And we're talking.

[Renee Graziano]

You know what? Yeah. And everybody wants to walk around. Oh, Renee, you're in recovery. You know, you got to let things go. No, you don't. I don't have to let anything go if I don't want it. She does. She can't influence me to. To use over it. She can't influence me to feel bad about myself anymore. But the truth of the matter is, it's people like her that say horrible things about a good person like me who does. Hide your lies. And. And I'm not talking about drugs. I'm talking about multiple lies. I'll hide your shit for you because I believe that you're not supposed to do that to another person. But you sit there and tell your friend to call me a junkie, okay? Like, you know, I'm so over the girls that you want to be a whore, okay? Own your shit, too. Like, you know, fuck that bitch. Like, if I want to sleep with you, I'm going to. You want to talk about me? Who cares? You want to call me a drug addict? So what? You know, if I'm a drug addict and a little bit of a tramp, oh, my God, I must be the worst person in the world. But I'll feed your kids. I'll give you everything I got. So this whole thing of mob wives and this mob lifestyle, like, you're jealous of me that I'm actually a mob boss's daughter. Hey, that's my father. That's not me. That's my father. That's who I became because of him. So when I was stripped, literally, of everything in life, from money to everything, I had to reinvent myself over and over and over, and I couldn't anymore. I just couldn't. I didn't want to anymore. I didn't know who Renee was. I'm just finding out who I am now. And, yeah, you know what? I wasn't my boss's daughter. I'm now a grandmother. I'm an advocate for people in addiction, mental health. I'm way more than a mob wife.

[Bonnie]

Absolutely.

[Renee Graziano]

Way more. And I don't have to tell you, I'm gonna beat you up to be cool. Like, okay, if that's what you think is cool, that's bullying.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And, yes, I might have been a bully on the show. Absolutely. But what they don't show you was every situation I was put into, I fought by myself. Everybody was against me. You know why? Because they were jealous of Jennifer. You know, not all of the girls. A lot of them had problems with my sister, but my sister's your boss.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

Who's on welfare. Who's this? Who's broke? And at the end of the day, she put a paycheck and a very tremendous paycheck for everyone. Maybe we didn't, like, we didn't get what we. We thought we should have. But Nobody was getting 8,000 an episode. Day one, walking in the door, nobody was. What were they giving? Like, Jersey sure was like 1500. Nobody was getting 8. 8000 for your first season. Nobody. You know, and there was just so much jealousy and, you know, even on my part. And I'll say that, like, Ange had a show. Not Renee. Ang this, not Renee, but Renee's the one who's doing all the work. So if you really want to talk about the show, Season one, I think we all had equal parts. Absolutely. Season two, we know it was all about me with nine extra episodes added. So now everybody got the same paycheck. I didn't get a bonus. Yeah, I had a problem with that. Absolutely.

[Bonnie]

Because it was your life.

[Renee Graziano]

Exactly. And nobody's doing what I'm doing. I'm giving you everything from addiction. I'm dying on tv, I'm od. And basically on TV every year to one point. I know for a fact when I. When everybody. Ramona left and Karen left, I was like, 75% of the show. I did the work. Work.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

There was a lot of unfair. You know, but I can't blame my sister for it because it's the network that's giving us the money.

[Bonnie]

You know, you guys literally became an iconic moment in time. I don't even think you guys realized how.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, I did.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. Renee's like, yep, yep, I did.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. I. I think that you guys are gonna be a part of history and that. That whole lineage. Like, look at you guys have Mob Wives retrending on Tick Tock now.

[Renee Graziano]

It's insane.

[Bonnie]

How do you feel about that TikTok trend?

[Renee Graziano]

I love it. I love it. I love watching Khloe Kardashian. First of all, I love Chloe. Yeah. Yeah. And I know Chloe from many, many, many years ago. She was always so much fun at beautiful. She's my favorite. I think she's just a beautiful spirit and strong, and she says what she says, and I love it. Watching everybody. Joan Collins the other day had it did the Mob Wives aesthetic. I'm like, this is. I wanted to be Joan Collins, and Joan Collins wants to be us now. So for me, it was this moment of wow.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, but again, like, I watched my mom do that. Like, I'm telling you, I came out in a fur coat with big diamonds and all of that. So I think it's wonderful. Like, if you. You know, I don't like the fact that they attach the negative part to it, because fashion is fashion. So they should, you know, leave it alone. But I do understand. They say, how do you glamorize the Mafia? Well, I don't know. You guys are the ones making the movies.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. Hollywood has always glamorized the mob because it's.

[Renee Graziano]

There was something to it.

[Bonnie]

I'm from Vegas. The mob is glorified in Vegas.

[Renee Graziano]

Do you know that? Meyer Lansky. So my therapist, Renee. Meyer Lansky was her godfather. And Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky opened the first Catholic church. Yep.

[Bonnie]

Wow. Yep.

[Renee Graziano]

The first Catholic church in Vegas.

[Bonnie]

Wow. That's amazing.

[Renee Graziano]

I love all those. Like, I want the house where Bugsy Siegel lived that they said is haunted. I would live there with him. I would feel like I have somebody.

[Bonnie]

She said I would. I'd live there with him. He'd love you. You and you and that ghost could make out every night.

[Renee Graziano]

Absolutely. Snuggle up, baby.

[Bonnie]

I love that. All right, so let's circle back. You're going through all this on Mob Wives. The. The show's kind of imploding at this point. And I. It's one, because of the Harvey Weinstein thing, but two, also, I feel like the cast members were falling apart, too.

[Renee Graziano]

Falling apart. Like what. What episode. What season are we in?

[Bonnie]

I think towards the last season, we're just getting to the point.

[Renee Graziano]

They were reaching.

[Bonnie]

Yeah, it was getting.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, they were reaching. I guess they wanted, like, New Blood. Alicia had left the show at this point. Karen came back. That's why Alicia left. And it just. And then the other Natalie left.

[Bonnie]

Carla and Drita stopped being friends like it was.

[Renee Graziano]

See.

[Bonnie]

Do we ever know what happened with Carla and Drita? The real story? Because.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, I do.

[Bonnie]

Can we talk about it? Because you were just with Carla the other day, weren't you?

[Renee Graziano]

I was. I saw Carla when I was in Florida. Yeah. So the truth of the matter is. And I don't. It's really for Carla to speak on, but I'll tell you this much. So obviously it couldn't just be me and Karen that thought she was shitty because it was her best friend then that she stopped speaking to. So it wasn't just me, Ramona, Karen. It was. All of us felt the same way. So now, obviously, who's the common denominator? She is. So my thing with. With Drita is this. She had this thing where she had to be the top dog. Drita's funny. I'm gonna give her that. Me and Drita have great.

[Bonnie]

She's great with the one liners.

[Renee Graziano]

We had some scenes together that we would be crying Laughing so hard. But the jealousy, it's stupid.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

It's like you're. Look, if you look up in the sky, there's millions, billions of stars, right? Everybody could be a star. Not my fault. I'm the North Star and you're not.

[Bonnie]

Right? Right?

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, I said it.

[Bonnie]

Mimi's over here falling out of her seat.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. North Star status. Sorry.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

God said, you know what? I'm gonna give you a lot of shit, so I'll make you the North Star. Okay, but what are you in competition? You can't be me, and I don't want to be you. You're not my father's daughter. You don't have my upbringing. You can't be me. I can't be you. So be you over the there and I'm over here. So I'm. I'm confrontation. We all know. I don't. I. I don't give a shit. I don't feel that girls have to put their hands on each other. I can have an argument, a verbal argument with you. Okay, so what, you've. You're fast with your words. You would. Okay, good for you. I'm not saying you're not a star. You definitely are. Yeah, but you don't have to be this person to. To down everybody else.

[Bonnie]

Right?

[Renee Graziano]

You know what I mean? I. I'm saying what I'm saying because it. When a person knocks you and knocks you and knocks you and kicks you and kicks you, you. That's where I'm at in it. You know what I mean? And it's sad, it really is, because we had something really special, all of us. But, you know, it's my understanding that VH1 was not happy with her either. The demands. The demands. Like, we. I remember we had to go to like an OK Magazine party and they sent us like, Ubers and it wasn't a black car, and she threw a fit. Who are you? I was born in a limousine, bitch. I don't even complain. Yeah, like, I'm really about that life. Do you know what I mean? I'm really from that life. Life. So, you know, Dreed is always saying I, you know, she was brought up in the projects. You didn't ride around in limousine. So what are you complaining for? You got a car, someone's driving you. I don't care that it's not a black off. You're still driving me to point A, to point B. I don't gotta worry. Yeah, like, what is that about? Like, the demands are ridiculous. They were ridiculous.

[Bonnie]

And what about the other girls on the show. Are you guys close? Are you guys friends like Carl? I mean, of course. Big Angie. We know. Rest in peace.

[Renee Graziano]

Yes.

[Bonnie]

You guys all loved Big.

[Renee Graziano]

Absolutely. I talked to Karen, and I talked to Ramona. I text with Ramona this morning.

[Bonnie]

She's so. She's so beautiful.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. You know what?

[Bonnie]

Gorgeous.

[Renee Graziano]

I. I have to tell you, I didn't talk to. I didn't talk to the girls for quite a while.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

So, you know, there was a falling out with a lot of the. Everyone. Everyone. And of course, I'm Jennifer's sister, so of course I'm gonna always stay on my sister's side. But then I got to a point where I had to make my rights. You know, I had to make the right wrong that I've done. So I did a lot of apologizing, and I'm very grateful that the girls have forgiven me. I do talk to Natalie Garcia, the one that I choked in Vegas.

[Bonnie]

It's growth, Renee.

[Renee Graziano]

It is. It is. It's growth on everybody's behalf. So I speak to everybody but Drita, and I don't see love at all. You know what I mean? But every time she kind of fell.

[Bonnie]

Off, love was, like, online for the longest time and then, like, completely disappeared.

[Renee Graziano]

I don't. She. I. She slept with my son's father, too. So it's just. It's so. It's just so annoying, all this stuff. Like, to me, it's just.

[Bonnie]

Not Hector.

[Renee Graziano]

Not Hector. Hector the Garbage Collector.

[Bonnie]

He hated that from this mob wives just frenzy. You guys literally were a moment in history and just brought so much realness to people's televisions. What does Renee do after the lights go off?

[Renee Graziano]

Renee continued to work. So I did celebrity Big Brother. I did marriage boot camp. Family boot camp.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. Can we talk about the marriage boot camp?

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, please. Let's talk about it. That fucking idiot.

[Bonnie]

You had another ass.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay? That was not my boyfriend at all. Okay, so here's that story. Okay? So he, you know, there was always, like, that flirtatious thing or whatever. So we get this the show or whatever, and we do it. But he decides he's gonna get drunk and he likes to grope. So they have me downstairs doing my scene for hours, and by the time he gets down the stairs, he's wrecked. And he starts cursing about my son's father and saying the word spic and this and that. And there's a Spanish kid there, and I'm like, don't say that. That's not nice. I'm trying to control the situation. By the time we get upstairs, he tells me that I'm an end lover and I'm a disgrace to my father and this and that and this and that. And I said, what'd you say? Like, now my girlfriend's in the house, prima donna and her husband. And he's saying the N word. And there's two bodyguards, big guys. And he's saying the N word over and over, telling me he used the C word. He used words that no one's ever.

[Bonnie]

And this is.

[Renee Graziano]

No, my ex husband's never even called me the words that he did.

[Bonnie]

This is drunk that you're not even dating, right?

[Renee Graziano]

And he's drunk.

[Bonnie]

Did you guys just decide to go on the show together?

[Renee Graziano]

Yes. So we. So what happens is he turns around and he says something, and I said, joe, my son's gonna hear. And he goes, your son's no good. Like his father. Bet I crack him. Like, I. Like. I don't. When I tell you, I don't raise my hands. Like, it takes a lot for me, and I don't hit men. I cracked this guy so hard that everybody was just sitting there like, did she just, like, hit him?

[Bonnie]

They were probably relieved, ready.

[Renee Graziano]

The bouncer goes like this. Don't. Don't. I was like, I got to. And I picked up, like, there was a big, heavy statue, and I went to, like, crack him in the head with it. And they were like, no, you can't. Yeah, I lost too far, Renee.

[Bonnie]

Too far.

[Renee Graziano]

You're telling me. You're cursing at me and my son. You're telling me my son's no good now watch what I do to you. So now they are like, we want you to press charges. I'm like, I ain't pressing charges on nobody. Cops come, they throw him out of the house. I make him sleep in the tent outside, basically, and he had to stay to finish the show. But, you know, it was like that redemption when I get up there, and I'm like. He's like, well, you know, like, getting married. Fuck you. I was like, I'm good. I'm leaving. Without you, I wouldn't have married him dead. Yeah, you know, that was. That was acting turned real, right? So for me, that got really very real. Every scenario was very real for me. So even though he wasn't my boyfriend, we were talking about reasons why I. I have a problem dating. So for me is I don't trust nobody.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

How could I?

[Bonnie]

Yeah, how could I?

[Renee Graziano]

There might be a nice guy down the road somewhere. There Might be. And if. If he comes along, he's got to come with a letter from God, because that's the only way he's allowed around me. Like, it's got to say love God.

[Bonnie]

Like, you know, like so exo.

[Renee Graziano]

Xoxo. Like there's nothing anybody can really do to me anymore, you know?

[Bonnie]

Do you think you'll ever be able to trust somebody in love again? To like, fully get the love that you've been yearning your whole life?

[Renee Graziano]

Well, you know what, bunny? Nobody knows this, but I'll tell you this one. So the last guy I was dating, I found out was gay Renee.

[Bonnie]

You got a picker on you.

[Renee Graziano]

Gay sucking dick.

[Bonnie]

Renee.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, he wasn't just cheating on me with a girl. He was cheating on me with a Russian guy. So the girl.

[Bonnie]

Which one was this? Do we know who this is? Are we allowed to say it or.

[Renee Graziano]

No, his name is. I can say it. He lives in Long island and his license plate is I suck dick. Bleep his. You can bleep his name, but leave it. Cuz I'll run with this like a T shirt. Hector Hecker, the garbage collector. And I sucked it. Okay, not me, the boyfriends.

[Bonnie]

So how long were you guys together for?

[Renee Graziano]

Like, but this is me. Wait, then the one before that was a con man? The things that have happened to me, Renee. The things that have happened.

[Bonnie]

Okay, no dating anymore, okay? Unless you need to run them through me first. I'll do background checks. I'll fucking. I need to meet them. Like I was.

[Renee Graziano]

So the. The. The one before last, he actually studied me. And it was a real con game. He said. You know what he said? He was away with my dad. He knew everything about my father. So for me.

[Bonnie]

Was he an obsessed fan?

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. So he used me. He opened up a strip club and he wanted 50 Cent to do the grand opening and I got 50 to do me a really huge favor for a lot less than he charges. And I love Curtis to this day. He's one of my favorite people on the face of this earth.

[Bonnie]

I hear really good things about him.

[Renee Graziano]

I love him for as much shit.

[Bonnie]

As he does not tolerate. Like, I've always heard really good things.

[Renee Graziano]

He's a cancer.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

He is one of my favorite people ever. He truly is. He's always been so kind to me. He had. You know, he got. He was on the phone, my dad, he's met my mom. He came to my father's house. I'll never forget. We were sitting on the couch one day and my ex husband didn't believe I really worked for him. So he was coming to the house. Cause he knew he was there. He put his arm around me, he goes, watch this. I go, okay. He goes, I'm so glad she's your ex wife. I was like, ok, yeah, I love him. He, he's always been a good friend to me. I would do anything in the world, fam, anything. But yeah, where was the con guy? Okay, the con man, right? His name was. What was his name?

[Bonnie]

It's okay, we don't need to know her name.

[Renee Graziano]

No, I can't remember actually.

[Bonnie]

Have to bleep it anyways.

[Renee Graziano]

In Texas. He was in Texas.

[Bonnie]

Damn. He was a southern boy.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, from the Bronx.

[Bonnie]

Oh, yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

But I find out like, you know what it was this long distance dating was different. So I'm not always around.

[Bonnie]

Where do you find these men? How do they fall in your lap?

[Renee Graziano]

So, okay, so this one booked me and was. It was. I was getting money with him and he was just really nice all the time. Like we'd show up with flowers. But I see, I don't know what a con game is. Yeah. So I like men, but not, excuse me, I like convicts, not con men.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

So for me, I think that's where I kind of got lost in it. Like. Like I would never think somebody would do that, you know, because I don't, I don't come from that.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, I come from like real money in the street.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And yeah, so he used me, comes out that I got engaged and then he didn't want to pay for the ring, so I had to bring the ring back. And he just wanted a TV show. Yeah. Okay.

[Bonnie]

What a scumbag.

[Renee Graziano]

That's all right. I gotta even with him already.

[Bonnie]

So let's move on to I suck dick.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay? Then came I suck dick. So let's say he sucks dick because I know I do, but he sucks dick. So this girl reaches out to me and she tells me that she's his girlfriend. I go, what are you talking about? I'm the girlfriend. So she.

[Bonnie]

Where did you meet this guy?

[Renee Graziano]

Where'd you meet I suck dick at again? Through getting money, okay? So he was like, let me, I'm gonna manage you for a minute. Because I was quiet, not doing anything. And I figured, okay, maybe I'm looking at like the statistics, the numbers. And his numbers were right. But I didn't know him. And he was in the street with that letter. Okay? So me, I go from, you know, the Italian mob. Then I dated bmf My BMF boyfriend was, like, high on the food chain for years.

[Bonnie]

I have a interview with Tony, said tomorrow.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay. Okay. So I'll tell you who it is. When. When we're done. Yeah. So I was with him for a really long time. So then I kind of just always stayed in the street because street guys, for me, were.

[Bonnie]

That's how I am.

[Renee Graziano]

What? I know.

[Bonnie]

I married a street guy.

[Renee Graziano]

Right.

[Bonnie]

Jay is a street guy.

[Renee Graziano]

Right, exactly. So I know the street. However, the streets changed. So the people that I was now associating with aren't. They're not even chewed dirty gum on my sneaker. They're degenerate low lives. Like, they're. They belong in the sewer. They're filled. Yeah. They all go in the Hector category. So she tells me this. She sends me an article. I read the article, and then I start realizing everything in that article is what he's doing to me. And there's the conversation with him and the guy, and it said, why didn't you. Oh, my God, how gross. I threw up for a week. Why didn't you suck my dick last night?

[Bonnie]

I was like, oh, my gosh.

[Renee Graziano]

Wait. He wants to call the cops on me because now I go public. Now he calls the cops. The cops come to my house in Florida, and they're like, Ms. Graziano, are you harassing him? I said, yes, I am. Why? What's the problem? The cop was like, you know, you really can't do that. I go, yes, I can. He's like, no, you can. I go, no, he's gay. And he told me he wasn't, and he's gay.

[Bonnie]

And the cop was like, put your life at risk.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. And the cop was like. Like, I gotta tell you something. I go, what? He goes, you know, I'm from Long island, so I know who your father is. Your father would be devastated. He'd roll over in his grave, because now he's not even my own nationality.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, so now the cop is saying this to me. He's on the phone, the gay man. And I love gay people, but I don't sleep with gay people.

[Bonnie]

Right, right.

[Renee Graziano]

Well, it's just a straight woman wants a straight man.

[Bonnie]

Absolutely nothing to do with that.

[Renee Graziano]

I love everybody. Everybody. I'm not racist. I love everyone.

[Bonnie]

It's also a health risk. Anytime somebody cheats on you, well, the man or a woman.

[Renee Graziano]

You know, the statistics for HIV are way higher with anal sex and. Da, da, da, da, da, da. So anyway, cop says, wait, he called you? I said, yeah, he's at the precinct. I'm harassing him. The cop goes off on him, and he goes. I go, matter of fact, he's threatening to send my son naked pictures. He goes, Ms. Graziano, that's a felony. Would you like to press charges? I said, you know what? I'm not a rat, but I can't do. I just couldn't do it. And he was. You know, then he started to realize the position he was in.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And I said, I OD'd over this. This is. This. This. Like, I. I just lost my whole life. Like, it was like I couldn't come up for air. Jennifer wasn't talking to me for a year and a half. Everything in my life was falling apart. My son didn't want to talk to me. Nobody wanted to talk to me. And they were like, you had lost your father, too. Look what you're doing to yourself. Look who you're with. We will not associate with this. And everything just started piling up and piling up and piling up and piling up, and I just. Just. I gave up.

[Bonnie]

And this was in what year? 20.

[Renee Graziano]

The one that just passed.

[Bonnie]

2022, right?

[Renee Graziano]

23.

[Bonnie]

2023.

[Renee Graziano]

Yep.

[Bonnie]

Okay, gotcha.

[Renee Graziano]

And I stopped speaking. The last time I dealt with him was April.

[Bonnie]

And when did you overdose?

[Renee Graziano]

And I. I may. And I just, like. I lost my man. And then I got back up on the horse, and I was sober. June, July, August, September 18th. Someone gave me a bag of fentanyl when it was supposed to be cocaine. And was it somebody you trusted, or.

[Bonnie]

You just got it from a dealer?

[Renee Graziano]

A girlfriend of mine. I said, make a phone call. Do me a favor, D. And she's like, okay, I. I vouch for him. I said, okay. I have the text message on my phone, too. He said, I accidentally gave her. I died in a restaurant in Florida. I was dead. I was intubated for three days, and no one in my family came to the hospital. And I spent nine days there learning how to walk again. And that was it for me. I said, okay. I was always afraid of heroin. Like, I never touched it, you know, never did anything like that. And my father's sister, Belinda, she was an addict, and she died hiv. But she was sober for many years before she died. And for me, it was always that one thought. And that was it for me. That was it. And I was like, okay. Like, I'm gonna die for real. So you. Matter of fact, I'm dead again.

[Bonnie]

You did a line of this stuff and how.

[Renee Graziano]

I don't remember anything you don't.

[Bonnie]

Okay.

[Renee Graziano]

So three days are wiped from my brain.

[Bonnie]

Literally. Just that was it. You didn't feel anything?

[Renee Graziano]

I don't know. I don't know what happened at all. I don't remember anything that day. September 18th is 18th. 19th and 20th are white. From my brain.

[Bonnie]

And why did nobody from your family come see you? They were just all mad.

[Renee Graziano]

They said I wasn't gonna make it, and my family didn't want to.

[Bonnie]

They just couldn't do enough.

[Renee Graziano]

I mean, unless they were, like, really torturing me in some sort of way. But, yeah, that was it. That was it for me, and it's fine. And I don't blame them. I don't. I put them through hell. Hell I put them through. When my father died in 19 and 20, they told me that if I had shock treatment that I would not be sad anymore. So I did.

[Bonnie]

So you had shock. What do they call that? Does it where they shock your brain?

[Renee Graziano]

Electric shop? Yeah, I think that's what it is. Yeah. I did six sessions, and it destroyed my brain.

[Bonnie]

You don't feel like it helped you at all?

[Renee Graziano]

No, I know it didn't. It made my addiction terribly worse. And I. That's the first time I'm actually saying it, because nobody knows that.

[Bonnie]

But, yeah, you need to speak on.

[Renee Graziano]

These things, because I would have done anything, Bunny. If they would have said, renee, jump off the bridge and you're not going to be in pain, I would have said San Francisco or Veranzano. Pick it. I'm going. I'm there. I don't care. Renee, tie bricks to your ankle and stay underwater for a day. You're not gonna live, but you won't be in pain. Okay, Let me do it. I would have done anything, anything in the world to remove that pain of losing my lifeline, because he was my identity. He was Renee Graziano. I. I that because of him, I was Renee Graziano. When you're older, it's hard to figure out who you are, and it's sad and lonely and.

[Bonnie]

Circling back to the shock treatment, though, they had recommended that for me whenever I was going through my depression. So I think hearing somebody who's actually been through it could possibly help somebody, you know?

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. So I. I would not recommend it. Six months, I did start to sleep, but then everything went haywire, so I lost a lot of my memory. I now take Adderall because of it, because the Adderall actually does help me. I take a very low dose. I haven't been on Adderall in four Months now. But I think I have to actually go back on it because at my. I can articulate, but not as good as I normally do.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

You know what I mean? So my brain isn't as sharp as it was.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

And the one thing that the Adderall did do for me was I don't have to take any antidepressants. So I actually have add, adhd, and it's that. That contributes to my addiction. So when my brain is here, I can't live in my past.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

So when I'm living in my past, that's why I constantly want to self medicate. So when I'm. When I'm on the right medication, my brain is like, sharp. Extremely sharp. And it does. It did help with the, you know, memory loss and it jogs your memory. But I've also done now ketamine treatments, which are phenomenal.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

Helping with the anxiety. So I don't take any anxiety meds. I take Prozac for menopause, actually, now, which I had to be forced into menopause at 44. They lost my uterus from all the scar tissue. My stories are crazy. And I take. I was on Strattera with Wellbutrin, and that's giving me a hard time. Yeah, those. I don't like it at all. It's like a pointless drug. It doesn't work. It slows the brain down, but it doesn't help you get it out. So that I just stopped and I.

[Bonnie]

Let's talk about where you are. Okay. So you did the la. You had your overdose, you had to learn how to walk again in the hospital.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, I was there for nine days, and then I was okay. Like, it was like nothing happened to me.

[Bonnie]

You're a warrior.

[Renee Graziano]

Well, if you saw my car accident on January 4th of 22, if you Google it, there's no car. And I'm standing outside the car, like, with a full face of makeup. I remember I felt my father, my Aunt Belinda, and my cousin Anthony pull me out of that car and they're all dead. And I kid you not, they, like, Google it. There's nothing. There's no driver's side. Yep.

[Bonnie]

You have nine lives, Renee. I told you that when we first. We first got here.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, well, I like wearing black for that reason too. The cat that I am, I'm just gonna have to learn how to land on my feet. Yeah. But you know what? I just got a job working in treatment, doing business development. I'm doing.

[Bonnie]

You left Florida and ended up Florida.

[Renee Graziano]

I went to Texas first to get well at recovery Unplugged. But they didn't have a program that was a little bit more modified for the extra extreme trauma for me.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

So after we did my trauma ag, it opened up everything again, and they couldn't follow up. So then Lamar Odom, who's a dear friend, had me come to his place, which is Vanity Wellness out here in California. And now I work for them, and my objective is to help someone realize that they are special and you don't have to have a hole in your soul. And it's okay if you do, you know, just spread love, give love, and it's really about that, you know, And. And I know I'm harsh with other things that I say because I'm a real person who feels, you know, and I hate the fact that so many people have done me dirty when I've really never done anything to them. But, you know, a lot of people don't like the truth. So that's what I tell you, the truth. A lot of people have to tell me the truth, so why can't I say it back, you know? And it's just I'm not weak by any means. And I was told I would never think you're weak. Okay, well, you know, a lot of people will say it because you're weak because you do drugs. Nope, I'm not weak. If I. I think I would have been dead a long time ago if I didn't self medicate.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And I'm not saying it's okay to self medicate. I'm just saying I would have been dead a long time.

[Bonnie]

That was your journey?

[Renee Graziano]

Yep. I had to numb everything. You know, it's to have an uncle blown up on. On a street, friends murdered, and you're just cooking Sunday dinner and like, oh, okay, honey. Yeah, I'll leave it on the counter. What is that? I spent a year in black going to funerals, so I'm realizing that is trauma. And although it wasn't, you know, in my household, it still was trauma. You know, losing life is when you're a loving person. You know, you're separated from somebody that you love. Like, it started with my grandmother when I was 13, and now in life, I have my four grandchildren.

[Bonnie]

Are you and AJ on good terms?

[Renee Graziano]

My son just left. My son and I. I'm sober since the 3rd of November, and my son and I have spoken every single day since then.

[Bonnie]

And shout out A.J. yes.

[Renee Graziano]

He's.

[Bonnie]

I'm sure that's detrimental to your sobriety also.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bonnie]

Not that we're putting pressure on him. I'm sure that's just so healing for you to be able to.

[Renee Graziano]

He's good now. He knows. He made the phone call because I told him that he wasn't gonna see me ever again on the third, and I said I couldn't do it anymore. I was like, I'm not gonna kill myself, but just in case something happens. And he said, stay right there. Don't move. And he made a phone call for me and my friend Phil O'Hara. He got me placed. He put me in. And it's just every day. He talks to me every day. And he's proud of me. And he says it. He'll call me and be like, what's up, home slice? What are you doing? Like, I'm like, oh, my God. Do you know how much money I made on TikTok today? Do you want half of it? And he's like, this is what me and my son do. I'm like, I send him money all the time. And he's like, mom, you. You know you can keep your own money. And I'm like, no, no, no. Go buy the kids stuff. And I'm having so much fun. And he's like, mom. I just took them to Disney last week. They flew here with the two older ones. We got rained out in Disney, but we ended up in Universal for, you know, a beautiful day. And it's. It's just my family's talking to me. Everyone in my family's talking to me. My sister Jennifer and I are working together again. She's part of my management team again. I'm so grateful and happy. Yeah, I mean, I'm a little angry at a few people, and maybe now that I said it, it I have to work on that. But if I don't like you, I just don't like you.

[Bonnie]

Right.

[Renee Graziano]

I probably don't have to talk about you.

[Bonnie]

Right?

[Renee Graziano]

But I can't respect a person that is me. That's right. Cruel. You know what I mean? Like my ex husband. That's evil. I don't like evil.

[Bonnie]

How do you feel about him doing these interviews now?

[Renee Graziano]

I think he's a twat. I think he's a twat. I mean, he sounds like a jerk off. I live for an A, everything. No, you didn't. You never had anything. It was always my money. You never had any money. You always had my money. I bought the house. Like, you know, he's just. I think he should just sit down already. The holidays are all about Sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan pie recipe and now you can also share a cart. With Instacart family carts, everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are.

[Bonnie]

So you don't have to go from.

[Renee Graziano]

Room to room to find out who wants cranberry sauce or whether you should.

[Bonnie]

Get mini marshmallows for the yams or.

[Renee Graziano]

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[Bonnie]

I can't believe he hasn't been sat down. That's the crazy.

[Renee Graziano]

Well, who's gonna kill the killer, right? My father's dead, so who's coming for him? Yeah, I mean, you know, he, he, he. I don't know why you even want to speak about me. Leave me alone.

[Bonnie]

Like you've already done enough loan.

[Renee Graziano]

Like I have not spoken to you in 13 years. Leave me the alone. Take your jerk off girlfriend who's a Mob wives fan and follows me and stalks me and calls me a junkie and like you don't you just got knocked out cold by a man. You should sit the down too.

[Bonnie]

Does he have a relationship with AJ at all?

[Renee Graziano]

No, he's, he's, he's, he has to, he, he should. You know what? God works in very mysterious ways though, because he has blood cancer. Now am I smiling? Oh, no. I'm sorry.

[Bonnie]

Hey, I'm telling you man, evil.

[Renee Graziano]

I can't help it. I, you know what? I, I, I know I'm supposed to be like, I know God. He's, God's not even mad at me. Forget it. He's not even mad. How could you be mad at the girl that this man Beat and did all these things do. And she smiles because you're sick. Yeah, he's really sick though. Like, he's diagnosed sociopath with psychopathic tendencies. Like, you should really sit down.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

You sound like an.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

Doing interviews. You're a rat.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

You want to profit from being a rat? You put my father in prison, my best friend's husband, my uncle. You destroyed a family. Many families. And how about the girl that doesn't have a father anymore? You did that. So you should be talking to God, not people doing podcasts because you want to earn money. Go get a job. Yeah, get a job. And stop beating women already. Stop. It's disgusting. You're not getting into heaven. Like, you're, you know, you're still. And you know, I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna. I wasn't gonna, but I'm gonna. So he was threatening to hurt me again. Okay. Just recently. The threats.

[Bonnie]

The junior.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah. Threat and how he's going to kill me.

[Bonnie]

Hector. He doesn't even describe.

[Renee Graziano]

He doesn't know. He doesn't. The threats, the threats, the threats. It's just to the point where it's gotta stop.

[Bonnie]

He just recently. That's like. That could be detrimental to your sobriety.

[Renee Graziano]

Yep. So my poor son had to do this. He said. He said you chose to do what you did. And beyond podcasts, you shouldn't be mad or anything if you get stuff said about you. And at the end of the day, you abused her. And you're still trying to abuse her. You're trying to hit her so she falls back down. I don't know how you think you're trying to be a protector or how you say you want the best from her when clearly that has never been the case. My son had actually do that for me. You know how disgusting you must be as a parent that your child has to defend his mother.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And you know what that did to me? That my son. Now I know my son knows. Do you know what I mean? Like, I knew he knew, but now I know he feels it. To say you abused his mother. Go the fuck away.

[Bonnie]

They never do.

[Renee Graziano]

Just go away. I don't want you anywhere by me. I don't even Unless provoked. I don't talk about you because you are a non fucking factor. You're a degenerate loser.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

Go the away. Take your girlfriend and go away.

[Bonnie]

Yeah.

[Renee Graziano]

And she needs therapy. That. How are you with, like, how do you not see what. What's happening to you? You know, And.

[Bonnie]

And it's the Same reason that we didn't see what was happening.

[Renee Graziano]

It takes a woman seven times. Do you know that? That's the situation. This. That's the number. She'll. Seven times. She'll have to be hit before she leaves. Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure she's probably around seven now.

[Bonnie]

Yeah, that's. It's. That's about right. Because that's what it took me to leave.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah.

[Bonnie]

A few years. And being beat up a few times.

[Renee Graziano]

Took me 10 years. 10 years. I couldn't.

[Bonnie]

Renee, I'm so proud of you.

[Renee Graziano]

Thank you.

[Bonnie]

You have come so far, and I'm not sign. Honey, I'm so excited to see what you do in the future, and I want. I. If you ever need to talk, you just call me. Just text me, call me. If you're ever having a rough time or anything, I'm always going to be here for you.

[Renee Graziano]

I appreciate it, and I love what you're doing, and I love the energy you put out. It's positive, even. Like, I could watch your face when I'm saying certain things. You're like, oh, but, you know, I don't often talk the way I do you in an interview, but I'm so comfortable, and I've been holding all of this for so long that it. That's what makes me sick.

[Bonnie]

So it's your secrets keep you sick.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, sure. Do you know now everybody knows. I'm a little bit of a tramp, though. I don't care.

[Bonnie]

They love you.

[Renee Graziano]

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care anymore. I'm so tired of caring about what other people think.

[Bonnie]

Stop caring. That's what that was. My huge lesson last year was I had to stop. I had so many people attacking me because of this podcast. And just I got to a point where I was just like, I don't care. I'm doing this. You're not. This is my life.

[Renee Graziano]

Well, it's jealousy.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. It's wild.

[Renee Graziano]

Isn't it insane. That and, you know, the comments that people say, the things that people say to hurt another human, like what people say about me when I read them, you know, the way I look or this. Or edit it or. I love my app. Apps. Leave me alone. I created a mob wife app. Yeah. You know, just for the fun of it. Because I love the way it looks. I love AI pictures. I don't always look good, so why shouldn't I like people?

[Bonnie]

It's your world. You can do what you want. Just like everybody does they want on Their own apps and on their own.

[Renee Graziano]

What was on a person's page and says those things?

[Bonnie]

Weirdos. Literally straight up weirdos.

[Renee Graziano]

Yeah, I agree.

[Bonnie]

Well, what's next? What's in the future for you? What do you have in the works?

[Renee Graziano]

Okay, so mob candy. I have my jewelry line still mob Candy. I have a new app with drop me in a. I called Mob Wife by Renee Graziano. And people could download their photos and they get to look like a mob wife for $8 as opposed to going buying that fur coat. You get the free fur coat. Yeah, I have. I'm working on a project. Hopefully it'll come to fruition with tv. I did do my own pilot for my fairy mob mother. Unfortunately, it was part of my relapse. There were a lot of things that I touched on that I obviously didn't deal with. And I started to self medicate again. So I'm going to leave that there. Yeah, that's not for me. And right now I just want to help somebody get sober. That's it. That's. That's really my focus. I have four grandchildren that I have to worry about. And maybe I'll find love one day, you know, but in the meanwhile, I'm gonna love me enough.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's beautiful. And I think that's all you can do after all the you've been through, Renee, you are still standing. You're still punching life and telling them. It hits like a. Like. You are one tough cookie, dude.

[Renee Graziano]

Thank you.

[Bonnie]

I just. I love your aura. I love everything about you. And I cannot wait to see how much hell you give the world continuing on in these years this time around.

[Renee Graziano]

As Renee, just Renee. I. I look forward to. To see who I'm gonna be in about a year from now.

[Bonnie]

I'm excited. You gotta come back and visit me.

[Renee Graziano]

Absolutely.

[Bonnie]

And come. Come to a concert. We're gonna be everywhere. We're going on tour, so come.

[Renee Graziano]

I'm such like a country country fan too. Like, I love country.

[Bonnie]

That's hilarious that you're a mob wife and love country.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh my God. Goth Brooks. When I get married, the song from Hope Floats, that's gonna be like my. My wedding. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love it. It's just like, it's. It's real. Come on.

[Bonnie]

Yeah. Come to a show. I would love to meet you.

[Renee Graziano]

Oh, yes.

[Bonnie]

I'll call him. I'll call him when we're. So you can say hi.

[Renee Graziano]

Yes. And he. Let me tell you something. My mother is a huge fan.

[Bonnie]

That's hilarious. I love that it is because she calls me.

[Renee Graziano]

Wait, I get. I get messages. Do you know what Jelly's doing now? He's working with the. What is it? Something to Towers. Freedom Towers. She tells me everything. She's like, renee, he's remarkable. And she's like, he spoke to Congress, Renee. I'm like, yes, Mom, I know. She's like, oh, my God, this is wonderful. You have a friend like you. And I'm like, you know what, Ronnie? It's just gotta stick your foot in your mouth all the time.

[Bonnie]

I love it.

[Renee Graziano]

Yes. Thank you so much, doll.

[Bonnie]

Well, why don't you tell people where they can find you on your social medias?

[Renee Graziano]

So social media for Instagram is Renee Graziano. And it's the real Renee Graziano on Tick Tock, where I make all my goofy dances.

[Bonnie]

Go follow the OG Mob wife and go pop into our lives and give her all your gifts.

[Renee Graziano]

Yes.

[Bonnie]

Thank you so much, Renee. You're welcome. Been a blast. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Don Blonde. I will see you guys next week. Bye.

[Renee Graziano]

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