Ramona Singer’s relationship with her father was sullied by abuse throughout her childhood, but the Real Housewives of New York City star’s reason for not attending his funeral had nothing to do with that.
Singer took a walk down memory lane during Wednesday’s episode of the Bravo reality show when she and co-stars Bethenny Frankel, Tinsley Mortimer, and Dorinda Medley went for dinner in upstate New York at the same restaurant at which she had hosted her mother’s funeral luncheon.
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“My dad’s been dead for like 10 years, my mom for 12,” she told the group when asked how long it had been since she had been there. “I didn’t go to my father’s funeral, because my brother cremated him against my will.”
To the shocked faces of her costars, Singer continued, “My father was an altar boy — it shook me to my core. I cried, hysterical. My brother wanted to save the money…”
Frankel chimed in, “Because it’s cheaper to be burned than to be in a box?”
“I would have paid for it,” Singer answered.
Adding insult to injury, the Life on the Ramona Coaster author revealed that upon the reading of her father’s will, he singled her out as getting “nothing.”
“When I read that, I was just on my knees, I was broken,” she recalled. “I was already upset that he died — we had reconciled — and then to see that in writing, I mean I fell to my knees in tears.”
Bravo fans have long heard bits and pieces of the physical and emotional abuse Singer and her mother experienced at the hands of her father, including during a 2009 episode in which she described making peace with him just two weeks before he died.
“My family life, from the outside, looked very normal,” Singer explained in Wednesday’s episode, “but there’s a lot of darkness going on the inside. …Yes, there are some good memories but there’s a lot of bad. My father was just very abusive to my mother, and it was really a horrible situation.”
Hearing their friend open up about the struggles in her life without weaponizing it as an excuse for her actions as she had in the past, Medley and Frankel were both moved.
Frankel, who has revealed her childhood was also one filled with dysfunction, even felt moved to share her own story about watching her mother be physically abused by her father, “dragged by her hair” down the hall. Frankel even recalled her mother threatening to kill herself in front of her as a child, dragging her to clubs at age 14 in a desperate bid for company.
“Bethenny and I do have this connection about how we grew up,” Singer said of the tearful night. “It hurts us to open up, and all of the sudden Bethenny’s barriers are down, so she’s more approachable. This just seems so much more real and so much more of a stronger connection.”
The Real Housewives of New York City airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
Photo credit: Watch What Happens Live
