We all saw it, but we all have different takes on what happened. To what am I referring? If you must ask, the most recent episode of Mob Wives! We can all agree we saw a smack down of epic reality proportions, but all viewers have their own take on what led up to the brawl at Renee Graziano’s birthday party and who was at fault. Some think that Drita D’avanzo was sincerely trying to make amends with nemesis Karen Gravano. I’ll be honest… that’s how I viewed it.
Some saw it as Drita’s guilt for marrying her former friend Karen’s long time love Lee D’avanzo. And after the initial conversation between Drita and Karen? That’s where it really gets dicey in the eyes of the beholder. No one can argue that Drita threw the first punch, but did she do it after so much verbal turmoil and the addition of Karen’s ride-or-die-friend/self-pro-claimed cousin Ramona Rizzo?
In an interview with Hollywoodlife.com, Drita explains her side of the cage match — and by cage, I clearly mean balcony. She recalls, “I definitely think they had the intention 1000 percent to do the tag team on me. I’ve gotten jumped. I know body action, motion, feeling — and I saw it. I saw the whole f*cking sh*t going on. I really did feel set up.”
Despite intuition, Drita did believe that her initial chat with Karen was not going to end badly. Quite the contrary, she was hopeful the combative pair could bury their differences. Drita reveals, “I was told she wanted to talk to me. I was so happy [she wanted to make up].”
Citing footage from that fateful episode, Drita continues, “If you see me, you see my body language. My gesture is genuine. I’m not trying to be a f*cking asshole. It’s crazy to me that she reacted the way that she did and changed and just turned the whole thing into a bad f*cking situation.”
Drita, however, is adamant about how the fight escalated. “Who started it? Karen. Who instigated and made it worse and then put me on defense mode? Ramona. She was told not to be there and she got involved. She knows I got nobody there,” Drita remembers. She recounts, “I was the one getting bullied. I felt cornered. I felt they had bad intentions. I’m going defend myself.”
Drita in no way is trying to pawn off her culpability in the situation. She is quick to admit, “I hit Ramona first. I punched her across the mouth. She shouldn’t have been there running her mouth. She knows I don’t trust her. And, Karen could have turned around and said, ‘Listen Ramona, this has nothing to do with you.’ Instead she got louder and nastier.”
Clearly these ladies are not people I want on my bad side. Drita tells the site, “I didn’t want to go to the party [in the first place]. I promised myself to never fight again on television. This is what I went in thinking. I never had intentions to ever touch her again. And, I specifically told everybody to keep Ramona far away from me.” You have to admire the fact that Drita promised herself never to fight again “on television.” Off camera everything is fair game, I presume?
Drita is not shocked by how things went down at the party, citing, “Karen and Ramona did this same thing to one of Carla [Facciolo]’s close friends. They jumped her. They don’t have a great rep when it comes to this.” I am hard pressed to find a “great rep” when it comes to any of these women! Joking aside, Drita wants to rid herself of the drama and violence, stating, “Fighting, I’m f*cking done with it man. I’m trying to put that behind me.” Good luck with that, dear lady. Good luck.
Turning to the woman on the receiving end of Drita’s right hook, Ramona Rizzo is the newest cast member who has a strong pseudo-family alliance with Karen. She speaks to the same site about why she is deserving of a spot on Mob Wives.
Going back to the family tree she discussed on last week’s episode, Ramona boasts, “I had somebody by the name of ‘Lefty Guns’ Ruggiero, who was my grandfather. The movie Donnie Brasco was based on his life. The only person I’m willing to speak about is my grandfather. We’re the real deal.”
While the family secret was that her grandfather was the member of a notorious crime family, it was kept just that — a secret — Ramona says,“I was extremely close with my grandfather. His going away affected me really bad. When I was making my communion, that’s when things started going on…My grandfather went to jail for 13 years, but they still didn’t tell me.”
She wants viewers to know, “My family hid it from me. I grew up differently. The word ‘mob’ was never used in my home. … I saw all the news with my grandfather, and that’s how [I] found [my] family’s secret out.”
Ramona’s revelation led to different choices. She explains, “Everything I went through, I didn’t want to marry Italian. If [I had] a boy, he could possibly be in the lifestyle.” Or his mother could be right in the thick of it, fighting on a balcony!
While Ramona’s former married life sounds like something out of a movie, it’s hardly a mob flick. After spending a decade married to a man from the Middle East, she struggled to get a divorce and fought to get her kids — Giovanni 13, Anissa, 12, Melina, 11, Gianna, 7 — out of the country of Jordan. Now raising her children in the U.S., she remembers, “The last time I was in Jordan was to get divorced. I went there for two-and-a-half years.”
That said, it’s clear Ramona is loyal to family… and that includes faux cousin Karen. I mean nothing negative by referencing her as faux, it merely means they aren’t blood related — I am fortunate enough to have more faux family than blood relatives. 
Of her infamous Mob Wives family member, Ramona says, “I met Karen at 4 years old. I called her mom and dad ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle.’ We did frequent holidays together.” And that, my friends, is why sometimes water is thicker than blood.
[Photos Credit: SPLASH]
THOUGHTS ON DRITA’S INTERVIEW? DO YOU BELIEVE SHE WAS JUMPED? WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT NEWCOMER RAMONA?
