Ramona Singer has mentioned her verbally abusive father before, but confronting her painful childhood came to a head on last week’s episode of Real Housewives of New York. When castmate Heather Thomson invited the girls to a getaway in The Berkshires, Ramona wasn’t thrilled about going because it wasn’t “luxurious” enough, and also because the woods reminded her of her family and childhood.
While off for a walk with Carole Radziwill, Ramona had a big breakdown about her abusive father. “Oh my god. This is f*cking unreal. Now I’m freaking,” Ramona said. “This looks exactly like my backyard. I believe my father moved us to the country so he could just hurt my mother and the neighbors couldn’t hear.
“It brought back memories of my parents arguing, and that’s just something I don’t want to remember,” Ramona said. “As a child to hear that every day is stressful.”
“I’m having a meltdown… You bury memories so deep, you don’t want to remember that,” she told a concerned Carole. “I have to go. I have to get out of here, seriously!” Almost immediately after having an impromtu breakdown, Ramona informed everyone that she was going home and needed a ride to meet a friend, leading some of the other girls to wonder if the whole thing was prearranged. Heather later wrote in her blog that she felt Ramona was playing the victim. “When she [Ramona] told me in the woods she was just too emotionally wrought over her childhood to stay, I was so sincere in my belief that I even stuck up for her leaving! I was actually proud of her for trying to overcome it, before realizing it was all an act,” Heather reveals. “What I fool I was! Ramona had bigger plans in the Hamptons that didn’t include us — and this fake panic attack was all part of it!”
Whatever was going on, Ramona definitely had a strained relationship with her father, something that Sonja Morgan related to. “I’m a self-made woman,” she told OK Magazine in 2011. “I was a victim of abuse. I saw my mother get the s*** beat out of her. I’d have to call the police. My father had a drinking problem, and I was on my own since 16. I put myself through college.”
“My mother said ‘don’t end up like me.’ I’d go ‘Mommy, why don’t you leave Daddy?’ She said ‘honey, I don’t have a college education, I never got a career, I have four kids. Please don’t make the same mistake. Have a career, and whoever you marry, make sure you’re always making your own money, because that will give you strength – God forbid something goes wrong – and they’ll respect you more.’ My mother always said ‘make sure whatever you do in your career, love what you do. I’ll scrub toilets for you if I have to, because I want you to tell me what you want and make sure you love it.’ I’ve always loved business, and I’ve always loved fashion. I started in clothing, and went on to jewelry and skincare. I love Pinot Grigio, so I did Pinot Grigio. Do what you love!”
In 2010, Ramona blogged about the difficult relationship with her father, and being thankful that she was able to make peace with him before he died. “Even as I am writing this I am crying, crying for the love I never got from my father, crying for the way my mom was abused by my father, crying for the lost childhood I never had because of my father. Unless you lived through this, no one can begin to imagine what it’s like. I thank God every day my loving husband Mario convinced me to have my father at our home over Christmas. I needed closure. It would have been even more devastating if he had died and we never made peace with each other.”
Ramona’s sister Sonya Mazur even weighed in about their father’s abuse. “Growing up in my family was very tough, just as Ramona has said. My father was an alcoholic, and he was very verbally abusive on a daily basis. Although he had his good moments, he had bad moments,” Sonya told Radar Online. “My father tended to throw things across the kitchen, whether it be a plate, a knife, a glass.”
About her sister’s on-camera meltdown, Sonya acknowledged “As for the little meltdown… Obviously, those old memories flared up, and it scared her. Ramona is a very strong woman, and she will never become like our father.” Sonya’s had her own battles around their father and their chaotic life at home. She says she developed an alcohol and cocaine addiction. “I felt very angry, very bitter, very sad,” Mazur said. “I hated my father for what he did to me on a financial level. I know he cut me out of the will because of my gay lifestyle, which I feel was totally unfair. I was his one of his children.” According to reports, Ramona was also cut out of their deceased father’s will because he believed she already had enough money.
Sonya says she’s doing much better now, and is writing a book with the help of author Sherrie Lueder, who helped their brother Bo Mazur write his memoir.
