Dolores Catania sits down with Jason Tartick this August and delves into all kinds of topics from what goes on behind the Real Housewives of New Jersey scenes, to her life before TV fame and her success as an entrepreneur.
For the past 15 years, Dolores Catania has been synonymous with The Real Housewives of New Jersey. She’s one of the franchise’s best-loved Real Housewives. Dolores’ family life, her personal relationships, and her tight-knit friendships are all laid bare during RHONJ. But, she has even more to share during her interview with Jason this summer.
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Dolores’ life before RHONJ
As Jason and Dolores get chatting, the former Bachelorette contestant asks what Dolo did for work around 2016 before RHONJ took her on full-time.
She said: “So, things were hard. It was 2016, there was a crash before then, right? Frank had invested in a lot of things and it didn’t go well. I had to, with no education, scramble to say ‘What am I going to do?’.”
“In my mind, growing up, I always looked up at the people who had the most as having an education, that’s all I knew. So, i tried to get a small technical degree as a surgery tech.”
Dolores continues to explain how she “didn’t know what to do.”
The Bravo star had a real estate license but said she “didn’t love it” and “it wasn’t going anywhere.”
“I wasn’t active, I was raising my kids,” she adds.
‘Getting a degree almost killed me’
Dolores goes on to explain how trying to get a “small technical degree” to improve her career prospects “almost killed” her.
“Because I realized in that moment that I wasn’t stupid growing up and put in all the slow classes, I was dyslexic. Only at 39 did I realize that. So, here I am, I’m bartending nights, I had to make money while the kids were sleeping,” she adds.
Explaining how she found out she was dyslexic, Dolores says: “I had to read the same sentence in the book I was given, maybe three or four times. Then I realized when I tried to write things down, they were backwards. Like I would write numbers backwards. I hadn’t been to school since 1988 and I felt stupid so I never thought of going back to school because I was always chastised for spelling, for math, I could not… to do this day I can’t do math.”
Dolores adds how when she was first on Housewives she “felt stupid” and would “run away” from public speaking opportunites.
The bombshells keep coming as Dolores surprises Jason even more.
The mom of two says: “I don’t drink. I’ve never been drunk.”
Jason asks: “Wait, you’ve never actually been drunk?”
She tells him she “can’t get drunk,” but “has tried,” adding: “Doesn’t everybody want to be drunk?”
“Something chemically… just… I don’t get drunk. I don’t like to drink, either.”