Let Me Tell You Something (3 page)

I wasn't prepared to lose my anonymity the way I did. If you Google me, you'll get a map to my house. We have drive-bys the whole weekend. People find my unlisted numbers and they call them until I change them.

Fans will also just park their car and walk right up my driveway. There's never a day that's completely private anymore. I just had to get rid of my mailbox at my house, because unsolicited visitors were leaving gifts in my mailbox, which was weird enough, and then they started stealing my mail! One day, we'll probably have to move from this house that we built and raised our kids in. It just won't be possible to live privately here. Would you like a stream of strangers banging on your door while you're trying to vacuum?

There's a common misconception that because you've watched me on the show that you know me and it's fine to come to my house and knock at the door as if we're friends, or to grab me in the street and kiss me. It's crazy. Andy Cohen explained it to me best. “Caroline, when you laugh, people laugh,” he said. “When you cry, they cry. They're in your life.” An actor plays a role, and the viewers don't see her in their home, there's a detachment. But I'm in their homes every single week through the show, and viewers are in mine, so that makes people feel familiar when they see me.

I've become public property, but I've also gotten amazing opportunities from the
Housewives
. I got to watch my sons' faces light up as I stood on the field at Giants Stadium. One night I was on a red carpet with Christopher and he tugged at my arm, all excited, because Adam Sandler was standing right next to us. Our family has laughed at Sandler's movies since the kids were tiny, so it was a surreal moment for us.

People give me grief for saying I'm not loving being famous. They ask me why I did the show if I'm so against fame. I get it, and if I'd had any idea that the show would be so successful, it may have prepared me for what it's done to my life. Believe me, I've tried to get used to the fame part of my job, but I'm still not completely comfortable with it. I still see myself as the old Caroline. I hate doing red carpets; I don't have a pose for those moments like a lot of the other Housewives do. I call it the Housewives stance, but I cannot master it. I've tried to get it right, but it's just not something I can do. When the other ladies pose, they look glamorous and fierce. When I try it, I just look fake and stupid. I could try harder to master it, to embrace this notion of celebrity, but that's just not me. Never will be. I still believe what I said in my first interview with producers: “I don't belong here.”

Perhaps the hardest thing about moving into the public eye has been the constant assumptions about my life. I've heard them all—that my sons are gay, that my daughter's a fat pig, that my husband's in the mob. I've been called a fat, redheaded dyke. Some might say that because I put myself out there, I should deal with these insults. To hell with them! I agreed to be on a TV show, yes, but that doesn't give anyone the right to be mean or disrespectful.

I value and appreciate my fans. I will stop and talk to as many people who want to talk to me. I've gotten on the phone with more mothers, sisters, daughters, and grandparents than I can remember, just because they wanted me to talk to them because they get excited to associate with a “celebrity.” But I'm still just a regular person trying her damnedest to make a good impression in an irregular life.

I've never been afraid
to speak my mind.

I've always loved to talk, ever since I was young. When my sister Frannie watches me on TV, she tells me not a thing has changed. She sees me talk to Jay Leno and Andy Cohen just how I used to talk to her when we were growing up. As one of eleven kids, I learned early on how to hold my own at the dinner table. Being part of such a huge family taught me the art of conversation, and on top of that, my father instilled in me the importance of never being afraid to speak my mind.

That's why when this show came along and we got asked to make the rounds at talk shows for promotion, I welcomed it. Talk shows have always been a piece of cake for me, even though some might say my very first appearance on a talk show was anything but a cakewalk. I was with Jacqueline and Dina on
The View,
and there was palpable tension in the air as we took the stage, in front of millions of viewers. I wasn't sure where it was coming from—until I got ambushed by all of the women of
The View
!

We were guests of the show just after Bravo had premiered the
Housewives
episode where Christopher launched his strip club/car-wash idea. Suddenly, in the middle of my first live appearance on national TV, the conversation turned to what my son had done, with the women saying it was inappropriate for a mother to allow her son to work with strippers. Even though this was happening on live television, the drama didn't faze me a bit. I just looked at them and said,
So what?

Of course that only made things worse. They wanted me to get defensive and give them some fireworks. “What's wrong with strippers?” I continued. I just sat there and didn't get heated. I told them I supported my son and that was that. People were shocked afterward that I stood up to
The View
crew; they can be an intimidating bunch. To me, it was my only option. They'd gone after my kid, I'd defended myself. They didn't scare me, they didn't bother me. I've never been afraid to speak my mind.

Not much scares me. I'll go on any show and talk to anyone. But I'm far less comfortable doing print interviews. A bad journalist can twist your words so much that when the article comes out, you're actually saying the opposite of what you meant. It's infuriating, but it happens much more frequently than you would think. That's why I like live TV—people can see the actual words coming out of my mouth—there's no mixed messages.

Plus it's a lot of fun, one of my guilty pleasures. I grew up loving talk shows, the rapport a host can have with his or her guests. My favorites are the shows that tape in front of live audiences. The energy is insane. I remember one time when I was cohosting with Regis, he told me I had been too hard on Danielle Staub. I looked at him and said, “Fine, you go spend a couple of weeks with her and tell me what you think afterward.” Regis burst out laughing, and the audience followed suit. It made me feel good that I just made a roomful of people laugh—I forgot for a moment that we were on a TV show streaming live across the country. I love the spontaneity of moments like this.

I don't know what the future holds, but if the opportunity to host a talk show came along, I would do it in a heartbeat. I can think of nothing more fun than having a different group of people to meet every day. I used to dream of being a lawyer or a child psychologist, because I like talking to people and finding out about them. I'm all about joking around with people and busting their chops. It's what I do every day anyway, so whether I continue to do it on TV or just in real life, I've got my questions prepped and I'm ready to go.

I have to pinch myself every day
to make sure I'm not dreaming.

Every once in a while I get this crazy moment of clarity, like when I was sitting thirty yards away from Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents' dinner, or when I was about to walk out onto the stage of the Jay Leno show. At those moments, my brain will snap and all I can think is, “What the hell am I doing here?” I pause and say to myself, “Just go with it, Caroline, have fun.” I relax and I enjoy whatever strange situation I'm in.

Never in a million years would I have imagined that my life would turn out this way. The people I've met, the things I've done—just unbelievable. I have to pinch myself back to reality. I pinch myself while we're shooting the show too. Reality TV is real. What comes out of our mouths is real, and these things happened. But if you're foolish enough to drink the Kool-Aid, and change who you are because there's a camera on you, that's when the walls will come tumbling down and you will become a puppet for the show. If you don't stay true to yourself, you're headed for trouble. No amount of money will make me say something on TV that I wouldn't say in real life.

Obviously, the show requires us to spend more time together than we normally would. There are times when we are filming that it's the last place on earth I want to be. I can sense when I'm being set up to help get sparks to fly. At those times I pinch myself, I remind myself to always keep my feet on the ground, to keep my cool until the storm passes. I know that if I walk away, the cameras catch it, and it becomes drama. But if I say anything at all, I am suddenly part of that fight.

I try my best to navigate these situations—I pinch myself and it reminds me who Caroline really is—and I don't have time to waste on something so petty.

At this point, being a part of the show is a business decision, not a personal one. I've gone through too many fires on this show to quit now. But for all the grief that has come from the show's inherent drama, there have been moments where I've needed to pinch myself because things were so great. In what other life would I get to say that we were invited to the Super Bowl—my whole family—by the Mara family? We all got to sit with the owners of our hometown team, and watch them win the Super Bowl, and attend the private party afterward. Being part of that was truly a once-in-a-lifetime miracle, sharing the victory with a family of very good people who came into our lives as a result of the show. It was an incredible day.