Hey guys, I'm Jackie Goldschneiner, I'm Essler, and we are two Jersey Jays and we have pretty juicy so for you today.
I think that it's like the episode, in my mind is like one that I would want to talk about or hear about. I want to listen to this episode because I think it's there's so much to say about it. We're talking about money.
Yes, we're talking about money, and since we are in the Housewives world, we're going.
To start there.
Yeah. So I think that the Housewives have become synonymous with having a lot of money, but I don't think that that's actually so true.
I think that part of the appeal of the Housewives, and as of viewer, I think I felt this way too, is watching women who you know, supposedly had it all a lot of that had to do with money, but also looks and you know, the perfect husbands and children blah blah blah, and then sort of watching their demise because I think we are so caught up in as a culture money and there's so much that affects us in terms of like our own self worth in terms
of money. So I almost feel like the Housewives show that money doesn't buy happiness.
Yes, but I originally thought that like all the housewives had a lot of money, and that is just absolutely not the case. And what I have found in recent years is that people who look like they have a ton of money a lot of times it's it's just a lot of spending of money that people don't necessarily have. Now, Listen, there are people on these shows that legit have a ton of money, and I have no I have no
privy to anyone's bank accounts, so I'm just guessing. But if I had to guess, I would say that it's definitely like Lisa Vanderpom definitely rich, Kyle Rich right, Suntrack rich.
Right, Candy, Yes, of course, yes. And then there are those of us who are not, you know, flying our own private jets and are I think comfortable with that and represent ourselves accurate? And I think there are those that cry to fake it and.
Yeah, I mean, well for documented news stories about many people.
And I'll tell you who.
I just in my head, it's so crazy to me that they don't have much money. Was this whole thing with cry and Kim. Now I didn't watch Atlanta when she was on it. I actually there's a few housewild shows.
I don't watch.
Atlanta's one of them, so I don't really know the people on there, but I know that Kim was on Atlanta Housewives for what five seasons, and then she had her own show for I think eight seasons.
He wasn't party for the party, yes to watch that. I watched a little bit of it, and I definitely watched when Kim was on it and she was involved with that older guy. They called him back a daddy, big daddy daddy or something. And I mean, that's an interesting study right there.
Right, I mean, she had an NFL contract where I date him billions of dollars also, and I mean they're broke. She's selling her wigs on eBay, So how do you go from all that income?
Isn't it interesting? It's the thing, potentially I don't know, that brought her so much money, was representing herself as a rich woman, right, And that's the thing that is part of what made her so interesting, watching her in the biggest state, watching her dripping in diamonds, and so
to keep that up. I'm not their financial advisor, but I guess she put forth too much effort in terms of like showing and being showy, and then she didn't have anything to back it up, or it all went away because she was so busy showing off her wealth. I don't know.
I think a lot of people think that being on the show itself is going to bring you the kind of money that you're presenting, which you don't really have, right, But that really doesn't happen.
It's very rare. I think to make enough money on this show that you can catch up to what you're presenting. You get what I'm saying and why and.
The bigger picture, right, like why does it matter so much?
Why does it matter? Well, I think it used to matter a lot more than it does now. I think it used to be that house I was were synonymous with having a lot of money, maybe not like billion, like not sudden money, but like living in a really big house, driving your range Rover, you know, occasionally flying out a private jet.
Now I think it's different. It is different now, It definitely has changed. Having said that, I also see a lot of the housewives representing themselves as down to earth relatable. I don't have as much money as you guys do, and the women that are doing that have still beautiful lives. They may not live in a states with yachts and private jets, but they live in beautiful homes. They have enough,
they have enough to you know, dress themselves up. And yet there's this whole I feel like, even just recently with Salt Lake City, that whole piece of it that you know, Monica didn't like whatever was happening with the ring you saw, Yeah, yeah, right, melt it she was that rubbed her the wrong way and she had to buy a Louis bag or something so that she didn't feel inferior when they all went on trip. But this whole sort of and that people could relate to that, right,
But Monica is still I don't know Monica. I don't know what she has in her bank, but she still lives. It looks to me like a really nice life. She has four kids, there's food on the table, she seems to take very good care of herself. She's driving around in a Range Rover. So you know that sort of feeling that maybe if I have less, that makes me more authentic and relatable. And I don't think that's true either.
Yeah, I don't think it's true either, But I will tell you I think that people love seeing a downfall. It's part of the whole I cancel culture. But like when Erin got sued, I have no I'm not taking a side on who's telling the truth in this one. But when Erin got sued Erin from New York by her landlord for unpaid rent and it was all over the news, I think people love that kind of stuff, that kind of ooh, maybe she's not who she says
she is. Whenever there's a story about Durie in the news, whenever there's a story about Erika Jean in the news.
Well that's because I think that it's natural for us. Unfortunately, part of what makes a human human is sometimes feelings of jealousy, feelings of wanting more, not being content, comparing yourself to others. I think that is, you know something I try to fight against it, but it's also I do the same thing right, Like I can look at a woman who is so uberwealthy, like a door Rate or a Kyle Richards, and say to myself, you know, wow, you know I like my own jet, I like my
own yacht. And the truth is I am blessed above and beyond. I have everything I need. My kids have food on the table. You know, God forbids someone get sick in my family, I'll have enough money to fly them to wherever the hospital, the best hospital is. That's what counts, right. Money doesn't buy happiness, But yet still we covet these things, and whether it's right or wrong, I think everyone has like a certain degree of that right, and it's it's hard to fight against it. But specifically
with the Housewives, it's so showy. Everybody is trying so hard to show so much.
Yes on our cast included, but we won't go into detail on that. So I think that also, you know, we live in towns where money is everywhere. People like to show off. I mean New Jersey. People like their big cars and their big lives, and they like to live large, and so it's hard to separate yourself from it. It's not just Housewives world. It's suburbs, it's in the cities, it's everywhere.
I grew up in sort of a unique financial situation. My parents were divorced when I was like three, and I moved with my mom and my sister to Sugarland, Texas. My mother was a secretary now we would say assistant, and we just didn't have a lot. We lived in
a very small house. I remember, you know, kids in junior high lived in Sugar Creek, and I would go through these gates and see these homes and I would just, you know, feel less than And my dad at the time in the eighties was very, very wealthy, so I would fly to see him and he was literally his apartment was across from the met ten ten fifth Avenue in the city, and then he had a an estate in Bedford and eventually he ended up living in Trump
Tower for a while. And when I was about nineteen, we had been named Mitzvah, so I hadn't been bought Mitzvoot. It was myself and my sister and my half brother. Anyway, it was on the Queen Elizabeth. It was like on the front page of the Metropolitan Section and Ivan Boski like flew brivate jet onto the ship. It was over the top, right. And then my father didn't have money.
But my point is it was always sort of that back and forth and that sort of I don't know, I used to have so much financial insecurity, Like you know, I'd wake up sometimes in my twenties and be afraid, like I have these nightmares about like being under the bridge with nowhere to live, and you know, being or being being homeless or just struggling, and I don't know, I am part of why. I think I'm so grateful
that we have what we have now. And again we're not bazillionaires, but it's just the safety that comes with having money.
Yeah, I have a weird relationship with money. I've always had a weird relationship with money, and I think it also stems from my childhood. So when I first got on the show, I was really uncomfortable showing off my wealth. I didn't want the producers to know that I had money. I just wanted to seem like I was like regular suburban well off, right. I drove a minivan at the time.
It wasn't even a new minivan, and it was like very stereotypical, like oldfish on the floor, shit everywhere, bird poop in the windows, and you know, my house is beautiful, but it's not mine no day and it's my house is beautiful, but it's not like you knowlous house at right. So I think that my second season, when I took the ladies to my Hampton's house, which is quite a beach house. They were like, wait what because everyone assumed that I was like the poor one on the cast,
and they were like, does Jackie have money? I remember I was listening to another podcast and they said that they think that I was like the first house I was ever to pretend that I had less money than I actually, which was really funny. But I grew up with a really weird relationship with money because I grew up the first part of my childhood it was in Staten Island, New York, which was very very We were
very middle class. We had like a small home and you know, like we just didn't have a ton of money, like me and my friends, like we would play in our garages. And then my parents their businesses really took off and they wanted to move out of Staten Island, so they bought a McMansion in New Jersey and it was one of the first homes on in the new development in this new area of the town, and we were like the only house on the block, and I
was really isolated. My parents, who are wonderful people, but they dropped me off at this house and they were like, Okay, we're going to work full time. And I had no friends, I had no rides to go anywhere, and I moved to this mcmahonsion and I was very isolated. I was very lonely. I had no friends. I would at a
new school, and I money. Essentially, suddenly we were wealthy, and I was so miserable, whereas I was so happy in Staten Island, and I was so miserable as friends and laughing and yes as a kid everything, and I think I resented all the money. And then to pile on top of that, my parents continued to make a lot of money. And when I was in college, one day the IRS came in and raided my mother's business
and shut everything down. And then I had to watch my parents go to trial for tax evasion and wonder how much jail time they were going to get, and watch them get sentenced, and it was horrific. So I think that I've felt like when I didn't have the money, I was so much happier. I was just happier. And then when I had all the money, nothing about it brought me happiness. So I was always very very scared.
I want to tell you something really really interesting, So I never would spend money, right, and I had this thing where I would always hold onto money and I never wanted to spend it on anything. And so when I a few years ago. I don't know if you guys followed my story, my personal story, or read my book The Way to Beautiful, but I recovered from a twenty year really severe anorexia. I recovered about two and
a half years ago. I chose to recover, and when I first went into therapy my therapist, I didn't want to do so many sessions because I didn't want to spend all that money on therapy. It was all part of me hanging on to all my money. So she said to me, you know, if you can't afford it, we can, you know, work out a payment plan. And I said, no, I can. I can afford it.
I just don't want to.
I just didn't want to spend the money. And she opened my eyes to the most interesting fucking thing. It's called, and it's a legit thing. It's called financial anorexia. And it's the same way that you think about food like and you're anorexic, or any kind of dieting like you. I was hoarding my calories so like I wouldn't eat all day and then at night I would have enough
to make me not feel super hungry anymore. And I was always like saving calories and I wouldn't eat, and like I was just afraid to eat because I was afraid it would spiral. And I was the same way with money. I was afraid to let go of any of my money because I was so afraid that something bad would happen.
And that's how. I don't know that he has financial anorex yet, but I think for a lot of people like my husband, like Jeff, he works so hard and he is successful, and yet I if it were up to him, we would spend nothing because and I don't think it's about I really sort of hate this part because it's I feel like Jews are always labeled when it comes to money, right, and Jeff Sessler's not cheap.
He would spend everything on his kids in two seconds, but like the little things he gets concerned about, and I think that's about financial insecurity. It's you know, I think that he's for whatever reason, whatever background he comes from, he's always scared of running out right or like, what's going to happen if I don't have enough? Especially as the primary breadwinner. I think a lot of men, you know, identify also with how much money that they make. That's
maybe for another day. Yeah, but I think a lot of people have fear when it comes to money. And then there are those, by the way, who I think, you know, have so much, there's so much excess, and feel good. The more they have, the better they feel about themselves. Right, I don't think you were justing that.
I don't know.
Do you think that's true? Like there are people in the housewives world that definitely keep accumulating and accumulating. There are people on our cast that have fifteen cars lined up in front of their house.
I don't.
I don't know. Does that could that possibly make someone happy?
No?
Wait, I didn't. That is not believe me. I don't. I think that everything that people say, right, it's so cliche that money doesn't buy happiness one hundred percent. I don't not think it buys happiness. I think that though people are sometimes their esteem is fed by things, yes, and it's never lasting. It can't last. Like when I moved into this house. We were bidding on this house and I walked into it and I thought, if we get this house for whatever reason, I just loved it.
I still do. I will never have an unhappy day. Well, about three days into owning this house, something came up. I mean, I don't even remember what it was, but I'm just saying it's not that's not realistic. Things of course, and we know this, right, things don't make us happy. But having said that, things, especially in today's day, and especially yes in the world of housewives, have become so important.
I always say to myself when I'm watching Beverly Hills, there's like, like, the birken Bag is like the eighth housewife. I don't know how many housewives there are, right, it should happen, right, It's like, well, it's like a friend of a housewife. It it shouldn't hold a diamond, but it has like its own importance.
Right.
I may argue that the friends of the housewives are the most important.
Part, fair enough, but like I'd feel like the birken Bag is real, like the eighth Beverly Hills housewife, and like you know who has one? You know, like they'll they'll do a shot of one, then they'll put one hundred thousand dollars underneath. Or Garcel got one, but she got maybe a used one and we know how much of that cost. And it's all about, you know, when the new ones come in, and it's an interesting thing, right, Like Burke and bag can cost one hundred thousand dollars?
Is that okay? I don't know. You could feed a small country with that. But guess what, I have excess. There's somebody else who I'm I listened to on TikTok Who TikTok who talks about like the Kardashians and how bad it is for girls today to watch their lives because they live with so much excess and it's so obnoxious. This it's so bad. They're such a bad example. But yet that person has so much, there's so much excess in her own life, right.
Yeah, so you're talking about you guys remain.
Nameless, but I like to say her name. No, I don't say anyone's name. I really don't. It's not and you guys know what I'm talking about. You don't have to name people. But the point is that, like you know, some when is excess okay and when is it not.
I don't like to be okay with the ship we see on social media because nobody has to live their lives for our approval, so we all have to be okay with it. I just, you know, I think that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors. There's a lot of people who are presenting a life that they don't really live.
I think that some of my happiest friends, and who knows, I don't know how to measure that. But like some of my friends that seem at least to me so content are the ones who maybe could live larger, but they live smaller lives by choice, right, Like they don't have anything to prove, and they they have other whatever it is that brings them happiness. You know, it's not
about their money, and that's what I strive for. I get caught up in also, this world of trying to prove that yeah you know, I'm glamorous too, Yeah, and it doesn't work.
It's I mean, my town's a tough town. How is your town like my town? The people are great, but they live very large. Like in the summer when everyone's kids go off to sleep boy camp, they are on yachts in Capri. They are at their like a massive Southampton homes. They are just living in my town.
But my friends, now, my friend camp. We were in my backyard getting wasted.
Yeah later Yeah, so you know what else? Also, like I grew up, this is I guess tied to like finances. I grew up my dad gambled a lot, So every single weekend we'd be at a casino. So I lived at casinos, and very curiously, my dad taught me how to gamble, Like he taught me every single detail about craps when I was probably like twelve years old, so I knew craps inside and album by the time I was eighteen. We used to go to the Islands and I would be gambling. I was gambling when I was
like fifteen. I had fake ID and so I think that I developed this relationship with casinos. You saw me even during BRAVOCM Like, I do not want to gamble because there was so much, like always tension between my parents when my dad would lose, and it's so funny he would bet on sports also, And when I was a kid my dad. I always thought if there was a broom outside my parents' room, it meant they were
getting along, and I never understood what it meant. But my dad would put a broom outside their bedroom when he swept his games, and I only knew that it meant that my parents were getting along. Wow, yeah, they were like like the money took over everything. It was crazy.
I love gambling. I love playing and not like blackjack, I'm not. I can't keep up with that shit. But like wheel a fortune, like sitting there because there's this feeling right that, like this quarter it changed my life, and I mean, why do I want to change my life again? I have healthy children and I have food
on the table, but it's that sort of feeling. And then, of course when I always do lose my money, and then it's like the depression of that, right, But it's like such a high to like, yeah, put the quarter in that little slot and think what I write all of a sudden, now like what if, yes, be.
Rich, I'm going to be rich.
Oh my god.
We have a very interesting guest today.
Yes, I'm so excited to talk to this person. Need too so.
Her name is Nadine Macaluso.
And you all may know her as the Duchess from a movie called The Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah.
She was married to Jordan Felferd, who was the infamous stockbroker who was immortalized in the Wolf of Wall Streets, and Nadine met and married him and suddenly he was thrust into this like unbelievably wealthy life.
Yeah, I mean I love that movie. So, uh, I guess she met him at least in the movie on a yacht and then they bought this state and he bought her yacht. It was called the Duchess and it was like so glamorous, and then the movie is about the downfall.
So let's talk to her. Who played her in the movie, the one that just played Barbie mart So gorgeous.
I mean, just like Nadine. Actually, yeah, she's gorgeous, stunning.
And she has a new book out, so we'll hear about everything. So hang on, we're gonna get Nadine on.
Hi.
God, it's Nadine. It's so nice to meet you.
So nice to meet too, my favorite new Jersey Housewives.
Oh thank you for saying that. While Nadine, we are so excited to have you on this show. And uh, first and foremost, we know that you have a new book that's out and we've been doing our research and it looks I have not read it yet, but it looks amazing.
It's very exciting.
I'm actually in Los Angeles right now, so part in my background because I had my book launch party last round.
So congratulations, so called run like hell, what is it about here?
It goes ooh pretty about trauma bonds.
It's all about dysfunctional relations that what is trauma bonds.
Trauma bonds is a dysfunctional relationship between two people who are emotionally connected. And so one of the people is usually the abuse or a perpetrator or a gas slider, and then the other one is victim to that and doesn't know that they're in it and things, they're just madly in love.
Basically sort of relationship also with like I'm malignant narcissist exactly exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I lived to that myself.
I'm guessing you're talking about Georgie Belfort. It's just a guess, Yeah, just a guess. Yeah.
Yeah, So I looked through that myself. And you know, at thirty nine, I went back to school to become married doctor, right sarahs got my PhD. And I never thought I would go into that sort of expertise around that subject. But I saw so many bright, smart, beautiful women coming into my office and I was like we have a problem, and so I just went to research and wrote the book.
Do you think so are? We're talking right now about money? Which is reely relevant and one of the reasons that we wanted to have you on because clearly you lived with crazy amounts of money. I don't know what happened after you and Jordan separated, but the women that come to you and experience that kind of trauma, Bonnie, do you think that what draws them in a lot of times and what maybe the men us is the money in terms of like, yeah, so yeah, and I guess
that happened to you. Yeah, tells me all about experience.
Yeah, so you know, I mean I was twenty two years old, I was modeling in the city, and my ex husband was twenty eight and uberly successful, right, a self made guy. So I really respected that. And I grew poor in Brooklyn with a single mom, and so you know, I wanted to have the nicer things in life. And also money represents power, right, and so it just does, especially in our society. And so we did fall madly in love, for sure, I mean, and yet of course the money was alluring.
So we were discussing, you know, having all of that money and I've never had that kind of.
Well any kind of money did you have? Like, what what did you guys do?
Yeah?
So, I mean so when I first met him, you know, this is how crazy he was. Like he would send his driver to my house with a Bulgari watch in fifteen thousand dollars in cash when you were first dating.
Yeah, twenty to cash. Yeah, you have to think just cash, just for the fuck of it. I couldn't even spend it.
I'd be running around shopping buying my mother like h stereo, you know back then.
And stereo, find mom Stereo.
It was like that.
Movie Brewsters Millions. Do you remember that where he had to spend all the money?
Yes, right, So I didn't even know or you know, he would.
He was so over the top with the love bombing, Like that's a big part of the love bombing is just spending and spending and you know, getting me crazy jewelry, taking me to Cardier for a watch, and just just the money just seemed endless.
And isn't do you think that that was? I know you you've said you guys were madly in love, but experiencing that from where you had come from and all of a sudden to be you know, put to have this glamorous world surrounding you.
It was it must have.
Yeah, And that's one of the reasons why I put myself in therapy right away at twenty two twenty three, because I was like, I don't know how to manage a staff, you know, I mean I had Then we moved to Long Island and at twenty four I think I lived in a ten thousand square foot house. Had to learn how to decorate it, right, So I went to interior design school because I'm always trying to learn, and you know, I didn't know how to deal really with any of it. So so that's why I went
to school and learned. I went to like wine class, interior design school, I went to therapy.
Do you have that imposter syndrome?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah. I remember like going on vacation sometimes, even when I was younger, places like I don't know, Saint Arts, and I would look around and see these all of these beautiful people in their white linen, and you know, they would have all the yachts and I was there, I was looking at the same ocean, I was eating the same food. But I would feel like this is realy not me, This is not I.
Just feeling super insecure, right, not experienced that before, and me being a type a personality, you know, wanting to do it.
Right whatever that meant, right, you know.
And then of course, you know, he put it over the edge when he bought one hundred and eighty foot yacht.
Yeah, oh my god, so you were you were vacationing on yachts, You lived in a in a massive mansion, you had tons of jewelry.
Were you happy?
Was he good to you?
You know?
Well, that's the thing about a trauma bond.
Is there something called intermittent abuse or intimate and reinforcement, meaning that you have these extreme experiences of love and love bombing and gifts and adoration, but then you also have extreme experiences of abuse and cruelty and control.
So it's the two. It's the too.
It's the extremity of those two experiences that actually causes the bond.
And did you feel like you had to stay married to him so that you can this lifestyle. Were you terrorized by the thought of going back to not having money.
Yeah, for sure.
And also I loved him and we had children right away, and so I really wanted to make it work. But yeah, I mean that that was a big piece of it for sure. For sure, and the fear of can I make it on my own?
Yeah?
Did you feel when you were surrounded by so much? Because this is sort of what we've been talking about today, But did you feel happier? Did you feel No? No, well, that's right, we'll talk about that a little bit.
Yeah.
No, I don't think that money makes you happier.
I think that, you know, coming from not having money and then going into money, I think we've been fed this American dream or this American myth that money is going to make you happier. Now, yes, does it allow us certain freedoms and does it give us certain comforts for sure?
And access any things?
So I would never deny that, But I don't think I think happiness is an inside job as a therapist especially, and I don't think it made me happier. I think actually what it did is it became a trap.
Right. I think that's so interesting. When you and Jordan broke up, were you still wealthy? Did you? Or or your whole lifestyle change?
I walked, I walked away with nothing.
What happened? So he got he got. You know, I saw the movie a very long time ago, so I don't really remember. But he got, he got arrested, he went to jail, he got arrested, he got he went to jail. But you didn't file for divorce for.
A little while after that, right, No, So what happened was that he got arrested for eleven counts of money laundering, and.
You were completely blindsided.
Completely blindsided. And then like that week, I filed for divorce.
I told him we get divorced because he had an ankle bracelet on, and I knew I was safe because he was very scary person. So I knew, like, no, he's the government's problem, and so the government had a skill. I gave a ten million dollars of all of our homes and everything we owned for his bail. I drove a million dollars worth of jewelry to the courthouse and said take it all because I didn't want anything, because it was all blood money.
How I think that is, first of all, so admirable. I think that, you know, we can talk about a lot of examples of women that would not want to drive their jewelry to the courthouse, right.
I mean, if you watched The Housewives there, right, yeah, right, right about Beverly Hillsman.
Yes, but that actually gets me very angry.
But the Erika Jane Earings situation.
Yeah, yeah, because I have a direct experience.
Yeah, But the blessing that you had enough wherewithal to know that that stuff wasn't treating you happiness, right, I mean I think that that's how how blessed are you? And I'm curious as to when you did get rid of all of that, and you couldn't have been It could have been a hard time. You were divorcing your husband and your whole life was changing, But how how much of you was affected by the fact that you were no longer a millionaire, a billionaire whatever.
Yeah, you know, just like everything, it was a paradox, you know, I find that in life as I get older. I was it felt freeing to give it up because it was such a trap, and then it it actually began to mean something terrible to me.
Jackie, you were just yeah, I had this say, very not to your degree, but I grew up, like the first half of my childhood, very middle class, and then my parents made a lot of money and those were the worst years They were the worst years because I was.
Lonely, I was isolated. My parents were fighting over the money. Then they ended up, you know, getting shut down by the irs and they went to they had their own issues.
So you had your own trauma around that. Yeah.
Yeah, So after you got divorced, did you have the option of fighting for money or was there nothing left?
I you know, I know many people that were in that same case that did go and fight for money.
I didn't.
I didn't want that to be my plight in life. I was thirty one, two little kids, and I had a maternity company at the time, so I had my own little business that I was kind of relying on, and it just yeah, no, I was happy to give it up.
And wow, I'm falling in love as we as we know, I really am. Forget about that you're gorgeous, but also.
Which is that great?
I know what? But anyway, also just hearing this kind of knowledge and this kind of uh, I don't know, fortitude, and I love that hearing that with women. And I love that you were, even back then when you were so young, not as swayed by you know, the money. I love that.
So it's like going from how quickly did you go from everything to You didn't go to nothing, right, but you went to it like a very.
I went to very low. Yeah.
Yeah, I went to like where I was really worrying about money and how I was going to make money.
And I did, oh wow, And then.
What was that? Like? What was that? Like?
That's super scary.
It was super scary because you know when you're when I was that wealthy.
Also, I was supporting my whole family.
That's like another one of those traps that you get into.
And so it wasn't even just.
Wait, tell us about that because they asked you to or you felt like that's what you should do.
I think it was a bit of a combination of both. And so I so that was like another piece of it too, Like it was a lot. It wasn't just giving up for me. It was like, Okay, now I'm not taking care of my parents anymore. And so and then I had two little kids, so then I was like, okay, I can't take care of my parents. I got to worry about my two little kids because they're three and five.
And so for about a year, I, like I said, I was I had a maternity store in Roslyn, New York, and I had a catalog and a website, so I was working at that and then, as fate would have it, I fell in love on a blind date with a guy like a year and a half later who lives in California.
And so then I picked my kids up and I.
Moved to LA to just have let us all have a fresh start, because I just didn't want them to live with the legacy. Now, little did I know my ex was going to write a book and make a movie, right, all.
Right, so tell us about that. So he was in jail for how long? Because I know that there are laws around, like moving your kids across the country when the father is in one place.
Yeah, so you know.
But luckily what happens is when your ex is a criminal.
The judge a little more leeway. Yeah yeah.
The judge was like, listen, your homes are getting taken from you, your right, your husband's a felon, Like, you can move. Actually just saw the new water in five minutes, and so I was about to move.
But now in this day and age, and I know, obviously you're a doctor and you take care of yourself, and you're also married, I don't know anything about you husband, How attached are you now the things to money, to wealth?
Well, you know, listen, I still like my nice things. I won't say, I won't deny that, but as a fifty six year old woman, I'm not that attached to it. I'm much more attached to wisdom and knowledge and having a moral compass and values and health. Again, that meat that I don't appreciate money now, But you have to remember, like when I grew up.
Maybe I'm a little older than you guys.
You know, it was pretty five.
Okay, so it was pretty woman, right, it was greed is good. I mean, we were fed these.
Messages about us.
Right, we are got an older and wiser to know about them. And I'm married for twenty four years now. My husband and I he had three children, I had two. We blended a family, and we had a modern day Brady bunch. And so I picked up and moved to La to start over.
Right, I have a whole bunch of questions. Go ahead, what was your.
We're just all over the place because we have so much to ask you.
Okay, So from you, first question before we get into anything else, is do you have any contact with Jordan today? How are the kids with him?
Yes, yes, I do.
I do have contact with him. My children are thirty and twenty eight. My daughter's a therapist, and you know, she just got married, she had a baby. So Jordan and I ironically actually got along pretty well afterwards. Oh, you wrote this book, you know, he Listen, my book isn't about him, but he certainly is the inspiration for it.
And we've had our.
Struggles a little bit with you know, me coming a lot on social media and telling my story.
But you know, like I.
Said to him, you hed a book, you made a movie. I also get to tell my narrative.
So I have a question. So, for a very brief period of time in my twenties, I was a divorce lawyer and one of the things that really I was at a very high end Park Avenue divorce firm, and I would have a lot of we were very female heavy, so a lot of wives coming in and it would break my heart because you would have these women whose husbands were going on their third or fourth marriage divorcing them as like their second or third wife, and they
were just lost. They didn't know what to do with themselves now, and they were all kind of young and beautiful, but they gave up. They stopped working because they thought this was forever and now they had no career and they had kids, and now they had no money anymore, and they didn't and you know, like the partners would be like, you should look at, you know, getting a new job and getting your resume in order, and they were like resume, Like, I haven't worked in ten years
and I have little kids. So what's your advice to any woman? I mean, because I know at my age I see some of my friends' marriages drop in like flies, So like, what's your advice to a woman who gives up her career to basically marry and raise kids and stay home and then suddenly they don't want to be broke?
Yeah?
Yeah, I mean that is so common, and thank you for bringing that up. Well, first of all, in a trauma bond, the number one thing that happens is you lose yourself. That is the number one symptom that happens. And so that comes along with a career, even hobbies, even like what do you authentically want to do? So what I always say, and you're facing your biggest fear.
For a lot of them, a lot of them will say that's my cancer innatine to me when I work with them about it, And the only thing you can do is to you've always been so focused on this other person, is turn the mirror back on you, get really curious about you and really finds out authentically what you want to do. I mean, I went back to school at thirty nine to become a therapist, So it
is never too late to restart your life. That doesn't mean it's not scary, and that doesn't mean that it's not hard, but you certainly.
Can do it.
Dean, Uh, here's a question. Do you watch the Housewives?
Oh my god, I'm obsessed. Really, I watch every single one I do, deep dead out really Oh yeah, really, it's my good pleasure. I love it.
You feeling about the trend of like some new housewives coming in with like who are not wealthy, like the Monica on Salt Lake City, or like even some recent New Jersey housewives, or like some I think, like Gina on the OC who I have? But like, how do you feel about that? Do you think that the Housewives should be this fairy tale about money or should it might like have on.
Just like everything in life, it's good to have socioeconomic diversity because women can relate to different types of women.
Well, I want to ask you how you think, and this is obviously there are a lot of housewives, but how do you think watching all of the different franchises these how do you think money affects the women? Some of them have more, some of them have less. Do you feel like there is so much buying for attention and I have this and I have that and every you know, it's a The house is a microcosm of the of I feel like, you know the world we
live in. But what do you think is really driving these women when it comes to money?
You mean, like their desire to be on the show or and like become famab what do you think.
Is behind this? Like showing off things that you very often don't have, oh yeah, or even that you.
Do have the showing off period, like watching it do that?
I mean I never understood that really, but I get you know, I mean, listen, I can only think that a lot of people place their personal value on the things that they have. So if there were in a Gucci belt, that means they're of value, right, true?
Because everybody's worth love just for being born.
I discuss that in therapy all the time, and not just when it comes to money, right, when it comes to fame. I think a lot of housewives feel like they are when they are at the top of their game. They're always afraid of losing it, and that causes misery. And then if they're at the bottom of their game and they've been demoted or you know, even help put
on pause, is that affects them. And the truth is, of course that we're enough when we are at the top of our game and we are on it and we are the most popular housewife, or when we are you know, the one that's been recently fired, none of it really matters, right. It's living in dignity and living in a place where you know you're enough.
And you can't you know this what I work with all my patients on. You can't get your sense of worth totally from external validation.
Right, And I think so much of that happens on the housewife.
Yeah, I mean it's a hard job to be a housewife. My hat's off to you, guys. I mean I couldnot do that. It says, yeah, well, I'll tell you.
I have these moments of real clarity especially in the past few months where ever since everything that happened in Israel, and I'm Israel, my mother's from Israel, so I will have these moments where I'm like and nothing matters to me except being with my children right now, Like you could take everything from me. The fact that I can sit next to my children while there are you know, one hundred and thirty plus people still being held hostage, is like, nothing else matters.
Get perspective, I think. Unfortunately, sometimes also when bad things happen, right, like God forbid, someone gets sick, the only thing I saved. Michael Strahan say that, yeah, his daughter has brain cancer, and he said everything stopped. Of course, everything stopped when somebody you love gets sick. But I guess that comes with perspective, right, So all of this stuff at the.
End of the day doesn't matter, means very little.
It doesn't matter.
And that's why I became a therapist because therapy saved my life. And what I love about therapy is you can't really get perspective unless you're reflective, right, if you don't pause and think about, like, really, what is important, what is making me happy?
And taking that time to do that is what gives us perspective and.
It's the only thing, right, like all this other stuff, right, and all this other these feelings of grandiosity that I think we fallen intimto as people that have been on TV. It always fads and you're always left with you know you and being happy with who you are outside of money. That's a side of any kind of theme.
So how are you now? Are you comfortable again?
Are you Do you ever wish that you could go back to some of that grand lifestyle or are you completely content?
I'm content? I mean, so would it be fun to go on a yacht maybe for a weekends.
Sure, But and you know I my daughters escaped birth and we have a six month congratulation. Yeah, and we just spent like a quiet, simple Christmas in Boca with family and it's calm and there's no drama. And you know I worked hard to have that life. Yeah, that emotional richness, right, that emotional intelligence.
And all of that. I know I'm repeating myself, but all of that stuff that you had and it didn't fill you up, And like right, it's just I wish that you know, everybody, we could all agree that all this stuff is so unnecessary, but I used to work on my own desire.
Can I ask you another question, just you your thoughts on this. I read an article in the New York Post last week about this new trend of the stay at home girlfriend.
Have you heard about this?
No? Please?
It's about women choosing to slow down.
There.
What was the exact words they used was they're choosing a softer life than the go getter, girl boss life. It's like they're they're getting rid of the girl boss and they just.
Want to go stay home, take care of their boyfriend, and take care of themselves so they could be their best self for their boyfriend.
But in the meantime, they are not.
They don't.
There's no emphasis on marriage, so there's there's no promise of financial security for you. Treating your career and your you know, your future for the comfort of this person.
What do you think of that? Well, I mean the purse of who you are. So yeah, I mean.
Good.
They want to slow down and not.
Buy into the whole girl bloss thing, which I can see that guns committed to that.
I can stand that wanting a slower, softer, easier life. However, I do think you run into trouble when you get very focused on just your partner, and again you can lose yourself in them. I think it's very important, especially as a woman, because we've been taught to be so relational, which is beautiful, but it's very important to still stay very connected to yourself. Like that's what I work on
with my women. How do you stay connected in your own power, in your own authenticity to yourself and still stay connected to another.
Right, that's the valle and you know when there's I don't think that it's black or white.
You don't have to be a girl boss, no to yea, but saying that, you know, the new way is to simply take care of someone else, and again without marriage or any kind of if you're going to give up everything and that's the way you want to live is just to you know, make someone else happy that makes you happy. Well, you better be careful because because it's maybe there's potentially that it might.
Not work out. And then what.
Why do you think I personally signed a pren up with Evan because I came into the marriage with a lot of my parents' money, which I don't spend my parents' money at all, but I had to protect that out of respect for them. He had absolutely no issues signed your prenup. He's in finance, he's made his own money. But I feel like prenups get such a bad rap, and I think that they're so like, there's nothing wrong with them.
I agree with you. I think they're so important because marriage is a legal commitment.
As we know, people so against them. What is the bad rap with them?
Because it's like that fairy tale love thing, you know, but we know people fall out of love.
We know we're living much longer, we know change is inevitable.
I would not have signed when I don't think and I'll tell you because is it' kind of about the it's about romanticizing marriage.
How many what percentages? There are more than half marriages and and divorce?
Right?
But I think, honestly because of my own security and knowing that, you know, we were going to enter into this partnership and.
I was going to be home taking care of the kids and raising them, and Jeff was going to be bringing in, you know, the money, and.
So what did that what would that look like at the end of the marriage.
And this is the point I think that people think that a seen is going to automatically work against the woman.
But I think that you can actually make it work in your favor. You can set up because if you leave it to the court, it's different. States have different rules on how what you're going to get, but you're going to do Yes, that's true. And have you ever known a woman?
Have you ever known a woman to sign a prenup because she thought it would help her out.
In the end.
I only know women whould sign if the man would demand that she signed a prenup. I think that, do you do you you know women that signed prenups because they wanted to.
No.
But I think what Jackie's talking about is I think actually an interesting new way to look at prenups where it can protect both parties.
You know.
I love that parties came in and like really decided, like mine intentionally, this is if we did break up, this is how we would do it. So I think traditionally, I don't think that's been Additionally it has not been like that. Like in my second I don't have pree up, right, I came with nothing, so worry about.
That, right, you know.
But the thing about one of the reasons why I wrote my book too is that I love this conversation. Is that education is what empowers us. So having these conversations and talking about different concepts, right, and then we get.
Then we get to choose. Yeah, that's right, and we get to choose.
Yeah.
Well, listen, after the show is overall, meet you for dinner at what time?
Because I'm obsessed so going to New York next week.
Please let's get together. Really we would love to say you're amazing.
Yeah, I'm going to to Good Morning America and NBC so to promote my boss.
Amazing.
It was such a pleasure of meeting you, and honestly, I love your perspective.
So much. I love you so watching you. Thank you for entertaining me.
Thank you.
Need to go on. She was amazing, amazing.
Yeah, I loved her, and I was so taken with the fact that she was not so taken with the money. I mean, to go from you know, being poor and then thrust into a world of glamour and luxury and still drive all your stuff right to the courthouse.
Good for her. I don't think it sounds like it was that hard. I think she's very grounded.
I mean, she and I think that a lot of people are not when you get you know, when you become that wealthy, you lose perspective. That's why I think I really just liked her.
Well, I think that the money didn't bring her happiness, and when she saw that or made it easier because a lot of unhappy people that have money, they'll still cling to it.
Oh yeah, right, listen, here's the truth of it. I'm not above any of that. I don't have what some people have, and I have more than other people have.
But guess what.
I think that if I my lifestyle was about to change, I hope that I would be okay with that and be strong enough and say I'm not getting I'm not happy because I have a five bedroom colonial in Versaddle River. I could be happy and you know, with much less.
Yeah. Well, you know what, Margaret Robby played her in a movie, a.
Movie about me, and Marco Rockie played me. I could do that. Yeah, well that means that I'm pretty fucking gorgeous.
Gorgeous.
This was so good, it was it was really I loved hearing your upbringing story. I didn't know that about your dad.
Really, that's well, Yeah, one of the divorce clients that I had lived in that same Trump Edding Tower.
Oh yeah, Hi, I was in.
I moved to New York City after college and I was in acting school and at that time he had moved to Dallas, so he had like six months left on his lease. So I moved in. I lived in a power and I would have these like parties, and the doormen were like, what the fuck it would be like, you know, kids coming in driving their bikes the goals, barking their bikes and bringing up like whatever, booze and paper bags.
Yeah, that's another great.
Example of like being there at that time, I think made me feel fed into this feeling that I was somehow special. You know. Meanwhile, I was at that time in my life like it fed into that, and yet at the same time, I was not happy.
At that point in my life.
I was I was struggling with an eating disorder and feeling less than in so many different areas in my life, you know, and not feeling good about myself, not feeling attractive, not feeling like I really knew what I wanted to do with my life. But that fed into that part of me, you know, is attack to money. I have this apartment, I'm just as good as I'm better than while I was miserable.
I'm so glad that you found yourself. Thank you. Not complete late act saying happy and briving.
Do wait all right, guys, well, we are so happy that you tuned in and leave us five stars if you love us, we don't. No, don't tell them not to be. We're fucking five stars. Do it easy, all right? So until next time, guys, thank you so much. We are two Jersey days and we will see you next time.
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