Good Tea Book Club: The Naked Truth by Danielle Staub
Anyone with a brain and/or Bravo subscription knows Danielle Staub is a terrible human being, which is why I wanted a copy of her memoir The Naked Truth for Christmas because the worst people have the juiciest backstories - and Beverly's didn't disappoint. Seriously, her life story is worthy of its own cheesy Lifetime biopic, and I won't rest until we get one.
It's always interesting to learn a garbage person's origin story to discover why they do the things they do, and every page of this biography taught me why Beverly is a broken, deranged, scary, vindictive, conniving human being and although I sympathize with all the crap she's had to endure in her life, I still never want to be within a 100-mile radius of this woman.
If you guys wanted a lengthy version of Bev's life story, you'd just buy her book yourself, so let me save you the reading time and give you the CliffsNotes version of all the juice she squeezed into a 200-page book. Beverly's birth mother was (allegedly) a teenager from a ganged related family in Italy and was sent to America to have Danielle to avoid shame from her community. You know, as you do. Danielle was adopted as Beverly Merill into a poor family, but always knew how to fit in with rich people and had an obsession with wealth. What's new?
She was raped for most of her childhood by her adopted father, which is sickening. Say what you want about Bev, and we've all said a lot, but nobody deserves to be violated by the person who's supposed to protect you. Also, what kind of sick fuck decides to adopt a child in need of a home and then sexually abuse them? It's gross, it's sick and I really do respect Danielle for persevering through all the shitty cards life has dealt her. From reading the book, you can tell the torture she went through in her childhood directly impacted the person she turned into.
As much as I empathize with her over the sexual abuse, Beverly has struggled to take accountability for anything in her entire life, and her first iteration of this was developing an "imaginary friend". According to Bev, whenever she fucked up her imaginary friend would tell her to blame it on someone else, which just shows the level of delusion the sexual abuse inflicted on her. Throughout her life, Danielle constantly uses her trauma as a weapon to throw in people's faces (*cough* LeeAnne Locken *cough*) rather than a way to explain herself.
Although she was unlucky in her family life, no one can say she was unlucky in love, Little Miss 21 Times. Since her first boyfriend at 15-years-old, every single guy that Danielle set her eyes on was instantly obsessed with her and I have no fucking clue how she does it. The Prostitution Whore really needs to start teaching classes because somehow she made every single guy in her life hopelessly infatuated with her. It takes talent to get 21 one guys to want to spend the rest of their lives with you, when you're a deeply fucked up human being. Snaps for Bev.
Danielle only wrote about five of her most predominant relationships in the book (which leaves out at least 14) and her track record is just as fucked up as you'd think. She cheated on her high school sweetheart Peter who was obsessed with her. Then her second boyfriend Billy, beat the shit out of her dad when he found out about the abuse, then took Bev to start a new life in Miami and cheated on her with her best friend. Her next notable boyfriend was Jorge, who she had no idea was in the cartel. Really, Bev? Really? He had millions of dollars, didn't seem to have a "real" job and his home was built off cocaine, but you had no idea what he was doing? Yeah okay...
This was when she got arrested. According to Danielle's retelling of events, she walked into her boyfriend's house and saw a guy sitting there who told her they wanted money from him, so she called his dad to ask for the money. This is how she claims she was arrested for kidnapping and extortion. Even if Danielle wasn't heavily involved in her boyfriend's work, she must've known that her nice lifestyle was built off of the trafficking of cocaine and that they didn't want money from that guy for innocent reasons. She got arrested, ending up getting off, broke up with Jorge and moved to Jersey with an "FBI agent" named Kevin.
I know everyone hates Bev, but Kevin sounds like an absolute cunt. He took her to live in Jersey, forced her into becoming a stripper (where she performed under the name Danielle), was heavily addicted to cocaine, beat the shit out of her and ended up being already married to another woman the entire time. It was only after they were married when Bev found out that her husband wasn't an FBI agent, but an "informant" who worked as a rat for the FBI to avoid jail time for his past crimes. Hense, a cop without a badge. What a catch. He tortured Danielle physically, psychologically, verbally and sexually. Mixed with her childhood abuse, this relationship is probably the main reason she is the person she is.
She wrote about Kevin forcing her to get pregnant and taking her to the OBGYN to make it happen, but then not letting her go into the examination room alone. He controlled every single part of her life until she wasn't even a human being. One night when he beat Danielle so bad she thought she was finally going to die, her mother came to her house in the middle of the night and saved her. After this cluserfuck of a relationship, Danielle met her second husband when she was working as a stripper, had two kids and later divorced him. I don't remember anything too juicy about that relationship.
Even though Beverly is the way she is, I have to respect her hustle. She worked as an escort in Miami and a stripper in New York during the 1980s and she made fucking bank. This woman knew exactly how to make money and finessed lonely, gross men to make it happen. If there's one thing Danielle Staub knows: it's men. All this woman has to do is look at a man and she can get his money, attention, dick or all three. If I was looking into becoming a sugar baby, stripper or an escort I would buy this book just for all the tips and tricks she gives. Now that she's done with Bravo, Bev really needs to start running a night class with all her seductive wisdom because she knows what she's talking.
While she only wrote about her 5 most prominent relationships, she claims the other 14 times she was engaged happened after everything between two dates or years of dating. How the fuck can you seduce a man into wanting to spend the rest of his life with you after two fucking dates? HOW?! She said she'd always say yes, meet their family, plan the wedding and then break his heart out of nowhere as a way to get back the control she lost as a child. Yes, ladies and gays, she's that fucked up. After her marriage when she started to see the error in her ways she started reaching out to her exes to apologize, but then had to stop contacting them after they'd become obsessed with her all over again.
What kind of men was she with, that not only would they want to marry such a horrible human being, but want her back after she broke their hearts? I'm confused and shocked but there must be some kind of trick she has. A golden pussy? A really good blowjob technique? I need to know. If Danielle was a superhero, her superpower would be trapping men and draining their bank accounts, which honestly, I can respect. Again, snaps for Bev.
Dolores Catania said it best when she called Beverly a cracked egg: because there is no fixing her. As much as I sympathize with Bev after reading her book, she just can't get out of her own way which is why she continues to spread rumors, pull people's hair, throw glasses and be an all round untrustworthy human being. Even though I gave out all the juicy cliff notes, The Naked Truth is a really addictive, interesting and heartbreaking read and I do recommend getting yourself a copy if you're interested in finding out how this egg became so cracked.
