Credit: Instagram
After opening up about some of her past trauma of being “sent away” as a child on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island, star Jo-Ellen Tiberi openly talked about her issues with her mom in a recent interview.
She explained her mom sent her to “a few different places” when she was a teenager.
“I wouldn’t call them boarding schools. They were like behavioral programs. People would get restrained, there were people who were cutting, there were people who were there for arson, there were people there for rape… It was really bad growing up,” she stated in an interview with USA Today.
As for why she was there, Jo-Ellen explained that it was because she had told her mom to “shut up” and had jumped out a window.
“I feel like the things that I did were normal teenage behaviors,” she said, noting her sister also got sent away to a “wilderness program” in Utah.
“Thank God that wasn’t what I had,” she elaborated. “I mean mine were bad, but I couldn’t live outside for a day. She lived outside for 12 weeks and like would have to dig a hole and go to the bath – like I couldn’t do that.”
“I have talked to my mom about it, like, how could you do that?” she continued. “How could you send me to these places?”
Jo-Ellen stated her mom told her she “didn’t know what to do’ with her.
“And I’m like, ‘well I wasn’t that bad, you know, I think you didn’t know how to be a parent and I know it’s hard because I’m a parent and I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s definitely not sending my children away to across… the United States for years like that’s just not normal to me'” she divulged.
She also noted she’s “very surprised” she came out as normal as she is, and is “happy” she has a relationship with her mother, even though it’s not what she wants it to be.
On the currently airing season of RHORI, Jo-Ellen has been open with her co-star Rulla Pontarelli about the fact that she believes Rulla’s husband, Brian Pontarelli, is still cheating on her. Rulla, for her part, has continued to deny it, insisting Brian’s cheating was in the past.
Jo-Ellen discussed this in an interview with Page Six, saying she’s someone who calls it “like it is.”
“If somebody’s lying, I’m – I think that somebody deserves to know if their husband is cheating on them,” she shared. “That’s being a girl’s girl. That’s just being a good human being and friend.”
She explained she doesn’t think Rulla wanted to “believe it.”
“I don’t think it’s that she didn’t want to hear it,” she elaborated. “I think she just was like, ‘that’s not true, you’re lying, you’re lying, I need more proof.’ And I’m like, ‘here’s a picture of them.'”
Rulla did not believe that was enough, according to Jo-Ellen, who stated Rulla insisted it could be “AI.” Jo-Ellen also shared a text message from the mistress with Rulla, and Rulla also didn’t want to believe it.