The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words
224
The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words
224eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
You’ve seen her on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, turning heads, raising eyebrows, and igniting feuds with her feisty suburban neighbors. Now, the always fascinating Danielle Staub gets real about her scandalous past in the year’s most explosive tell-all memoir. . . .
When she signed on to appear in a reality TV show, Danielle had no idea what she was getting herself into. Hoping for a new lease on life after her recent divorce, the single mother of two became the target of vicious gossip, heated arguments, and endless controversy. When her housewife costars confronted her with the true crime book written about her ex-husband, the you-know-what hit the fan. Danielle knew she could no longer keep her checkered past a secret—and she had to set the record straight.
This is the real Danielle Staub, in her own words, as you’ve never seen her before. The child of an unmarried Italian teenager, Danielle was born in Pennsylvania (under the name Beverly Merrill) after her mother was pressured by her well-to-do family to leave Italy and not return until after she’d put her baby up for adoption.
After years of sexual abuse, she fled to Miami, where she became a model, living the kind of lifestyle she could only dream of as a child. She partied like a rock star and with them as well, but ended up marrying a deceitful man who held dangerous secrets of his own. Soon Danielle was caught up in a tangled web of lies, drugs, and abuse that landed her in the hospital more than once.
How she survived—leaving her husband, changing her name, and finally giving birth to two lovely daughters—is one shocking story you have to read to believe. If you thought The Real Housewives of New Jersey gave you the real story of Danielle Staub, you don’t know the half of it. Filled with glamour and grit, heartbreak and heroism, this brave, no-holds-barred memoir reveals the naked truth behind reality TV’s most talked-about star.
“You either love me or you hate me, there is no in between .” —Danielle Staub
For the first time ever, one of the stars of the hit television show The Real Housewives of New Jersey tells her side of the story, including . . .
• The truth behind Cop Without a Badge, the book that shocked the other housewives in the first season’s explosive finale.
• Her flashy, fast-paced life as a Miami model—and exotic dancer.
• Her controversial arrest and time spent in prison.
• Her wild hookups with famous celebrities, including an Olympian and a Miami Vice star.
• Her abusive childhood, rocky marriages, stormy divorces—and her triumphant rise as one of television’s most intriguing personalities.
It’s all here—and all real—in this straight-from-the-hip memoir from the Real Housewife who has all of New Jersey talking . . . and the whole world watching.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781439182918 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Gallery Books |
| Publication date: | 05/25/2010 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Sales rank: | 656,019 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The headline on the flyer handed to me at the Chateau hair salon in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, said “Jersey Girls: My Fabulous Life.” It was advertising the casting of a new televised reality show, and the flyer created quite a buzz among all the local girls, who imagined that their “fabulous” suburban lives would fascinate audiences everywhere. My reaction was quite the opposite: “My life sucks, so no thanks.”
Six months later, I was again approached about appearing on the reality show. The only show airing on Bravo within the Housewives franchise at the time was The Real Housewives of Orange County and I hadn’t seen it, but it had gotten a stamp of approval from my eldest daughter, Christine (who has become my “go-to” girlfriend for all of my big decisions), so I checked the show out for myself. I definitely liked what I saw.
After viewing an episode, I found it offered refreshing insight into families as well as friendships among married and single women alike. Single moms on the show were going through their problems while getting advice and support from their castmates. This made me think I should consider participating in the show.
In the beginning, I believed being on The Real Housewives of New Jersey was going to be an uplifting, quirky, fun, joining-of-the-hands experience that would perhaps entail a little drama shared by all of us. I soon found out how wrong I was. I became the focus of a character attack delivered at the hands of those who would, I thought, be holding mine in friendship. As the first season played out, my castmates’ biggest source of ammunition was a book (that came to be referred to as “the book”)—the expose written about my first husband, Kevin Maher.
Ironically, being exposed on TV forced me to reconcile my present with my past and realize that those experiences, for better or worse, made me who I am today. As I dealt with the scrutiny of my castmates, something clicked. People were taking so much interest in someone else’s take on my life that I decided they would perhaps like to know how it had really happened. And my fellow housewives had no right to turn what was my tortured past into the present. I realized that if the public had this much interest in my life, then it was time that I told my story in my own words. There are no two sides to one’s life story. If you didn’t live it, it’s not yours to speak of. don’t want to pretend or claim to be a voice for every housewife. But I have a voice and I intend to use it. I will lend my life as an example for others.
I get notes every day from people who pour their hearts out to me about their own challenges and how they can relate to my life’s struggles on many levels. These are the people whom I wrote this book for, as well as my children and myself. Every story that’s been written about me—and there have been a lot—has been edited. This book is the unedited version of my life. What you read in the following chapters is what happened the way I remember it.
In this memoir, I’m finally baring it all. The title, The Naked Truth, doesn’t refer to being naked without clothing. It means naked as in stripped down and laid bare. It means naked without skin—totally raw to the bone. That’s exactly what this book is. No matter what has happened in my life, good or bad, I am now in a place where I can make some sense out of it and hopefully help some others to do the same. It’s time to set the record straight and correct all the lies. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then hell is a quaint suburb in New Jersey and the woman scorned is resident housewife Danielle Staub.
You either love me or you hate me, there is no in-between. But people are going to pay attention when I’m around.
© 2010 Danielle Staub