
LOVE, FAIRYTALES & NEW BEGINNINGS
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So today, March 6, my birthday, happy birthday to me.
And I decided to do a solo episode of Cat on the Loose. I haven't done a solo episode in a very long time.
And I decided to do a very raw, very real, very emotional, special episode for us, where I'm going to open up a lot about my journey of how I got to where I am today, living my best life. As much as I don't have the partner of my dreams yet, I don't have my fairy tale yet, I am doing what I love.
I'm pursuing my dreams. I'm insanely fulfilled doing beautiful
work. So, so happy with the podcast, our fast, fast growing worldwide community,
doing every, every, every, everything that I always loved doing. I am acting.
I am writing.
I am creating. I am independent.
I am making my own money. I am happy with my rescue doggies.
I live in my dream place, Beverly Hills. I'm spending my birthday in one of my favorite places in the world, Malibu, the beach.
I have it all. And now I can say that I don't need a partner.
I want a partner. But I get a lot of backlash, especially social media, right? People see my life on social media and I get all these messages like, oh my God, she's rich.
Everything is easy for you, blah, blah, blah. It's easy for you to speak.
And I say, no, it's been insanely difficult to get to this place. It's been an uphill battle to say the least.
I've been through hell and high water. So if you think your dating life is hard, if you think your dating life is complicated, maybe you're sitting there listening to me and you've been through heartbreak.
Maybe you are going through a breakup. Maybe somebody
has been mistreating you. Maybe you are going through a nasty, bad relationship and you don't know how to get out.
Maybe you feel you are in a dead-end road or maybe you're frustrated with your dating life. Anything that you're going through, this episode is for you.
Fasten your seatts, because I'm going to tell you guys,
my journey has been nothing, nothing but easy. So I promise you, if you don't give up on love, if you keep going, keep going, keep fighting for your happiness, keep fighting for love, keep fighting for your dreams, there is always, always, always, always, always a much, much, much happier day.
And I will tell you guys how I got to where I am today. You might need a box of tissue.
And for those of you new to Cat on the Loose, Cat on the Loose sex, dating and relationships is always 100% organic. It's never edited.
So I don't know if I'm going to cry. I might get a little emotional.
I always get a little emotional on my birthdays because I do like an entire reassessment on my life. I get rid of crap that is not working well for me.
I see it as a blank page in my book. What can I do better? Moving on.
So I don't know. If I get emotional, I'm not going to edit it out.
So if you guys get emotional with me, amazing. But let's talk about love.
Let's talk about failed relationships. Let's talk about things that we should not accept, about red flags.
And let's talk about moving on. And let's talk about how we all deserve the fairy tale.
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212-682-6620 for Madison and for Greenwich, 212-374-0150. I've been doing cat on the loose sex dating relationships for a little over three and a half years now.
But before I started the podcast, I had a very, very different life. I was married to a very rich, very wealthy man, very successful man for about 15 years between dating him and being legally married to him.
And yes, we lived a very lavish lifestyle. We had beautiful homes.
We had a mansion in Las Vegas. We had a beautiful condo at the Four Seasons in Miami.
We always had a place in Beverly Hills. We traveled the world.
We stayed in the best hotels money could buy. He bought me beautiful gifts.
We did it all. And for the outside world, I had this perfect princess life.
So many people used to say, Oh my God, you're a Barbie, you're a Barbie, what a fantastic dream life you have. But guess what? My husband was a raging alcoholic and the more money he made, the more he drank.
He used to joke that drinking was his hobby and the more he drank, the more he abused me. He abused the shit out of me.
He abused me verbally, and unless you've been through verbal abuse, you don't even know how painful it can be. It can be as painful or even more painful than physical abuse, and yes, he physically abused me several times, and a lot of people ask me, why didn't you get out? Why did you stay with him for so long? And I tell you for several reasons, because many times victims of abuse, it takes you a long time to even process what's happening to you, to even understand that you're being abused, to gather the courage to understand what's happening to you, to figure out what you're gonna do next how do you deal with the situation how do you get the courage to understand what's happening to you, to figure out what you're going to do next, how do you deal with the situation, how do you get the courage to get out, for all of these reasons.
And yeah, it took me a really long time, took me all of those 14 and a half, almost 15 years, the courage to get out. And once I did get out, and once he passed away, my life turned upside down, And I went through hell to get to where I am today.
And the reason why I'm going to tell you the story and let you dive in with me deep into the story is because I hope if I help even one woman out there that sees herself in a similar situation or you see yourself in a dead-end relationship, you're frustrated, you're being abused or you're dating a narcissist or you don't know what to do with your dating life, with your relationship, there's always a way out and there's always a new beginning. You just got to keep going.
You just got to believe in yourself because many times in the worst, the darkest times is when you realize you have some inner,
inner, inner strength that you didn't even know you had within you. I promise you, you just gotta keep going.
Remember, you gotta pull yourself by the bootstraps and keep moving. So come with me And let's dive into this crazy, chaotic world that was my relationship with my now late husband, Tony Zamuto.
I was very young in my early 20s when I met Anthony at a bar. I was fresh out of college.
I had just graduated. I had started my own business.
I was actually already very successful. I was making my own money.
I drove a really nice car. I drove a BMW M3.
I was doing pretty well by myself. I was definitely an overachiever at a very early age.
And he was much older than me. He was 22 years older than me.
And he had just gone through a super, super nasty divorce. And we actually met at a bar and we started talking.
And a few days later, he invited me into his house for some kind of a cocktail event that he was having there. And he lived in a beautiful, beautiful mansion in Boca Raton, Florida.
And I remember a few minutes into our conversation, he had a really dark sense of humor, which I don't mind, but he used to make some nasty jokes. And I remember he made a really nasty joke about Latin girls.
And he said to me, oh, you're really cute and you're very pretty and you're very intelligent, but I know all your Latin women, what you do. You come to the United States and then you want to date American men.
And I know your game. You want to get pregnant because then you make us marry you and that's how you get your green card.
And I looked at him and I started laughing and I said, well, maybe the women that you date because I already have a green card. I have two college degrees.
I speak several languages. I drive a BMW that's parked in front of your house that I pay for.
I don't need anything from you. So goodbye.
And I turned around and I left. And I think it was at that time that he realized that I wasn't like the regular girls that he was dating because at the time he was dating a lot of escorts.
He was dating a lot of strippers. He was really mingling with some nasty, shady people.
So the next day he called me to apologize. And he said, wow, you seem like you're really different than the women that I hang out with.
Let me take you out for drinks and for dinner to apologize. And I misread you and I'm so sorry.
And for whatever reason, I accepted his apology and he did take me out. And at the time, he was a functioning alcoholic.
And I didn't know enough about alcoholism back then to understand the levels of alcoholism. But he was a functioning alcoholic, meaning he would have a few drinks, but he could still go to work and have his regular life.
But he was having just a few drinks. And he was a major, major, major old-fashioned gentleman, which is something that I love in men.
Like, he would plan a fantastic date, pick an incredible restaurant, pick me up, drop me off, fabulous conversation. He was such an intelligent man, such high IQ.
He knew so much about so many different things. And we had a great time and he started dating.
But this is the point that I say to a lot of girls. And I say to this day, we ended up dating for so long and ended up getting married.
I wasn't the prettiest of the girls, but I was the one girl that stood out in his mind because I had so much going on for myself. And that's what he noticed about me.
I had my interest. I had my friends.
I had my job. I was trying to build a career for myself.
I was making my own money. I had my green card.
I wasn't trying to marry an American for that. So I had everything going on for myself.
And he was like, okay, this girl, if she's with me, she's interested in being with me. She's interested in my company.
She's definitely not interested in taking something from me. And that is so, so important.
So many times to high quality men or men that are so wealthy because so many girls try to attach themselves to them because they want something from them. And that's what made him build so much trust and confidence in me so quickly.
And we developed a beautiful friendship and a beautiful relationship very, very fast because of that. So the beginning, everything seemed really, really, really nice between us.
But sure enough, as time went by, he started complaining more and more and more about my work, cutting me off. And it starts very subtly, like, why are you taking this job? You make such little money.
This is so stupid. And comments that at the time, I didn't realize how awful they were, such as, well, I make more money in an hour than you're going to make in a week or in a month.
This is ridiculous. Why are you doing that? And I didn't even realize that these were forms of control and forms of abuse.
He would say, oh, this is really stupid. You're not going anywhere with your work.
This is meaningless. You should just stay home and do something else.
And a lot of people ask me, why didn't you leave? Why didn't you leave? And like I said, because I was so naive and I was so young and I honestly at the time didn't even notice that that was a characteristic of abuse. I thought it was more like gestures of caring about me, about being like a guide and a mentor and my best friend and my boyfriend.
But it's something that starts snowballing, snowballing and snowballing. And before you notice, the person is taking more and more and more control over your life to the point that one day you wake up and everything is exactly the way they want it to be.
But I want to tell you guys a few episodes that happened when we were doing some amazing things that turned into this crazy, abusive situations that I never even told anybody about. So the thing with being verbally abused is that when you get called words like, oh, you stupid idiot, you dumb fuck, you piece of shit, you get called these things over and over and over again.
You start believing that you really are all of these things. Slowly but surely, it makes you feel like shit.
It's a funny, funny, funny, funny, detrimental, horrible game, mind game. And in my marriage, my husband not only was an alcoholic, but he was incredibly bipolar.
So every time he drank, we could be literally having like the time of our lives and a vacation, five-star hotel, some fantastic place. And out of nowhere, it could be the silliest thing, like he didn't like the food or he didn't like something I said, or he drank too much and he was ready to go to sleep.
The smallest thing would set him off. And then all of a sudden he will go off on me and start calling me every name in the book, literally every name in the book.
Sometimes it was in private, sometimes it was in public, sometimes it was in front of people. And it happened all the time.
And it really, really bettered me emotionally and it bettered me psychologically. But some of those incidents, he actually became physical with me.
And I think unless you have been physically assaulted by someone, it's hard to explain how devastating that is. And I know there are a lot of women out there that have been through this, such as myself, that stay in the marriage because when it happens to you, you kind of numb.
At first, you kind of don't believe that it happened.
I remember the very first time that it happened to me.
We were actually in Rio.
We planned this fantastic, fantastic vacation.
We planned for over a year because we decided we were going to spend New Year's Eve at the Copacabana Palace in Rio, which is one of the most spectacular New Year's Eves in the world. You got to plan like a year ahead because you got to reserve the room.
We reserve the presidential suite of the Copacabana Palace overlooking Copacabana Beach, which has one of the most spectacular fireworks show in the world on New Year's Eve. So anyways, we planned the whole thing.
It was going to be me, him and my mom and my stepdad. And we were so excited.
And we got there. And the day we got there, of course, he was drinking like usual.
And he decided, like always, he would drink and go take a nap and fall asleep. And he was taking a nap during the day.
And I was just in the balcony admiring and looking down on the beach, everybody there and everything. And the phone in our spectacular penthouse presidential suite of the hotel kept ringing and ringing because remember, it was the 31st of the year.
And all of my family and relatives and friends knew that I was in Brazil. So, so many people wanted to reach me and say Happy New Year, asking if they were going to see me, blah, blah, blah.
So, all of a sudden, I'm standing at the balcony facing the beach. And I feel this very, very, very strong thump, like somebody smacked my back.
But so hard, so hard, I gasped and I lost air. And I turned around and I looked and it was Anthony.
He basically smacked my back and screamed like, hey, the fucking phone doesn't stop ringing. What the fuck is going on? You know, I'm trying to sleep.
And I was stunned because I had been with him for a few years at that point. And we weren't married yet, but we were dating at that point.
And I was stunned. And this is the funny thing.
Now looking back, at the time when it happened to me, I didn't even think, wait a minute, you cannot hit me so hard like that, that I lose my breath. that's assault.
But at the time, I felt bad and embarrassed, like, oh my God, I can't believe I woke him up. I can't believe I did this to him.
I felt guilty. I started crying.
I was so scared. I felt horrible.
So he was like, shut the fuck up and tell them, don't call, don't let the phone ring. I want to go back to sleep.
Fuck you. And then he started the verbal assault.
You stupid fucking idiot. So I called the reception and I tell them, hey, please block all the calls to the room.
My boyfriend is trying to sleep. I was so scared that someone would call the room again and that he would get out of the bedroom because it was a big suite.
I was terrified. I was terrified.
I remember sitting in the living room chair for many, many, many hours, like not moving like a child, so scared that he would get out of the room or either smack me again or scream and yell at me again or be pissed at me again. But I felt like it was my fault, like I did something wrong.
So that's the funny thing. Like, it's interesting to look back because I obviously his behavior was one million percent absurd.
But at the time, every time I was assaulted and yelled at and
hit somehow by him, I always blamed me. And that was the first incident.
And after that, every now and again, he would do things like that to me, smack me or kick me and things like that. And again, and the few, very few people in my life that I told this, very, very few rare people in my life.
Like my mom, now she passed away a few years ago. But my mom knew the stories because she actually witnessed him kicking me once with his steel-toed boot.
If you guys don't know what a steel-toe boot is, a lot of people that hike, that walk around the woods, they wear, it's literally a very heavy-duty boot, and the tip of it is made of steel, so you don't get hurt in the wood. And Anthony loved hiking and walking around the woods in Maine, up in Maine.
He owned land in Maine. So he used to walk around with steel toe boots.
And one time we were walking around Las Vegas, around the Las Vegas Strip when my mom was visiting us. And me and my mom were walking and laughing, na, na, na, na, na.
And he was way behind us with my stepdad. And for whatever reason,
he got pissed that we were too ahead of them. And he came and kicked me, hey, and he kicked me with a steel toe boot and screamed at me.
And my mom saw it. And we were like, you know, we didn't know how to act.
And again, we were so scared of him and so scared of his reaction that we didn't do anything. And only many, many years
later, we talked about the incident. How absurd was it that he kicked me and he kicked me in front of my parents.
And of course, there was a huge bruise on my leg because these boots are very It's a miracle he didn't break my leg, but my leg was really hurt.
I mean, I'm 117 pounds. And this man was like a really strong man.
He was short, but he was very strong. He was like almost 200 pounds, 180 pounds.
I don't know. And this boot is like the insanely heavy, strong boot.
But even my parents didn't
react when that happened because we were always scared or afraid of not knowing what his next reaction would be. So we were always thinking like, let's not rock the boat.
How crazy is that? So I had incidents like that happen to me throughout the years.
And sadly, it took me so many years to come to the conclusion that nobody in the world deserves to be treated like that. I don't know, unless I guess, unless you've been kicked, unless you've been beat by someone, unless you've been hit by someone, you don't understand how painful it is.
And I'm not even talking about the physical pain. It rattles your entire world.
It sends shockwaves to your soul. It's impossible to describe what it does to you.
Somebody that you love, somebody that you trust you, hitting you. And then when they apologize the next day and they say they're never going to do it again, they do it over and over and over and over again.
It's very, very, very painful. It puts you in a really dark place.
And in my case, it took me all those 14 and a half, almost 15 years to get to the point
that I said, you know what?
I deserve so much better than this.
I had enough.
I'm going to get out of this.
So now you probably guys are asking, so what the hell?
You know, how did you finally decide that you had enough?
And this is what made me decide I got to get out of this marriage. This is it.
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and the day my father died we we were at our beautiful mansion in Las Vegas. It was 7am Las Vegas time and my mom called me from Brazil.
And I thought something was wrong because usually me and my mom had a ritual of speaking with each other every day, 9am. So immediately when she called, I was like, what's wrong? And she told me, your dad
died. He had a massive heart attack in the middle of the night.
And I looked around,
try to see where my husband was. He was outdoors at the pool patio already drinking, which was very
common for him. And I went to tell him, you know, I wasn't very close to my biological father.
He wasn't the nicest person in the world. That's a whole other story, but he was my father.
And I went to tell Anthony and he was like, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. And he continued drinking.
He didn't come give me a hug. He didn't come ask me what I needed, nothing.
So I went to my bedroom and I was quiet and I was thinking about it. I was, you know, just mourning and try to process the information.
And as the news was spreading, someone called and he was on the phone. I think it was his sister.
And I heard him talking and laughing to his sister. And he said, oh, by the way, Catherine's father died.
And his sister said something on the other side. I'm so sorry about that.
And he started laughing, laughing uncontrollably. Like, no, it's okay.
It's not a big deal at all. He was not a great person.
He was not like a nice man at all. It just doesn't really matter.
And I remember something snapped on my head when I heard that. I was like, oh, my God.
I am married to a person that is obviously in love with alcohol more than he's in love with me. I lost my father and he cannot come and console me and take care of me and help me figure this out.
And that day I decided that I needed to save myself. And once he sobered up and everything, many, many hours later, I finally gave him an ultimatum.
And I said, you need to quit drinking. By the way, in 14 years, obviously, that's another question that people ask me.
Did you ever try to make him quit drink? Of course. We tried everything, everything, everything, everything.
Go to rehab, don't go to rehab, doctors, no doctor. He was the alcoholic that said, I'm going to drink, period.
Leave me the hell alone. I do whatever I want.
I make a lot of money. I do whatever I want.
So yes, I had tried everything you can dream of under the sun in 14 years to make the man quit drinking and nothing ever, ever worked. So yeah, that was useless at that point.
So I had a conversation with him and I said, I'm going to go to Brazil to see my family, to see my sister. And I think if you don't quit drinking, that's the end for us when I come back.
And he said, well, I'm not going to take an ultimatum. And if it's between my drinking and you, yeah, it's going to
be the end for us. But I was hoping that by the time I came back from Brazil, he was going to miss me.
And he was going to agree to get some kind of treatment. But unfortunately, when I came back, he said that nobody was going to push him against the wall, that he wasn't going to quit drinking.
and okay, he wanted to divorce me, let's get divorced. So we signed divorce papers.
And at that time, his alcoholism was so, so, so advanced. He was starting to have many, many, many health issues, severe health issues.
He knew he was going to die. He didn't want to go to the hospital.
He didn't want any nurses, anybody to take care of him. We remained best friends.
We remained good friends. The only person that he allowed near him towards the end of his life was me, by the way.
So although we did divorce and I moved out, we separated when he needed help a couple of years later, when his health declined severely, I moved back in to help him until he passed away. And that's a whole other story as well.
But yeah, I think something really, really radical needed to happen for me to realize people will not change for you. They will not change because they love you.
They will only change if it's something they want to do for themselves. And I know a lot of us make this mistake when we love someone.
I made this mistake for all those 14, 15 years.
For so many years, I thought, oh, he calls me names, but he loves me so much, he's going to
change. Oh, he drinks, but he loves me so much, he's going to change.
Oh, I know he hit me, but
he loves me so much, he's never going to do it again. Oh, you know, I know my love for him is
going to be stronger than his love for alcoholism. Bullshit.
Now I know for a fact that we only change anything in our lives if it's for us, if something really, really, really strong inside ourselves tells us that we're like, okay, I want to change for me. And unfortunately, in his case, he did not want to change for me.
And he did not want to change for him. And his ending was very, very, very, very sad because he did end up dying a horrible, horrible, horrible death that he dreaded.
He ended up dying in a hospital that he didn't want. And yeah, alcohol is a very, very slow, very slow death.
And it destroys the person. It destroys a lot of people around them.
And I am today happy to say that I was able to save myself because many times there I thought, oh my God, okay, that's it. That's the end of me as well.
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And once he died, my life turned upside down all over again. My mom had died one year before he died.
so it was two huge losses for me I lost my two best friends
I lost the floor underneath me. And although he left me all of his assets on his will, all our personal possessions, the court system did not help me enforce the will.
Unfortunately, that's a whole other story. So I found myself with absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
No best friend, no Anthony, no mom, no assets, no income, nothing. And I was like, okay, now I got to start my life over.
I'm not 20 anymore. I haven't worked much the past 15 years.
I've been following an alcoholic husband around. I've been taking care of a dying alcoholic ex-husband the past two years.
What am I going to do with myself? So I had to reinvent myself. I had to go back to work.
And I thought, okay, that's great. I have so many friends, right? I'm so rich.
I was so rich. I have hundreds of friends in Miami, hundreds of friends in Beverly Hills, so many friends in Las Vegas, all these people that used to come to my parties, my beautiful parties.
You can Google my parties, all these people that loved me, all these entourages. No, no, no.
I'm going to ask people for work. I love working.
This is the great news. I started working when I was four years old.
My first TV commercial that I ever did, I was four years old. That's the great news.
I have work discipline. I'm going to go out.
And since I have so many friends, I'm going to go and ask
for work and everything is going to be great. Guess what? Everybody ran away like rats.
Like my mom used to say, people bought popcorn and sat on the front row to watch my demise, the disgrace not one person extended me a hand. And I have to say, I never, ever, ever asked anybody for money.
I never asked anybody for handouts. I asked people for a job.
I said, you know, Anthony died. Guys, look what's going on.
I have to start my life over. I will do any job.
I will do anything. I'm not embarrassed of working.
I love working. I have college degrees.
I speak several languages. I've traveled the world.
I know how to do so many things. I am not lazy by any means.
I will do anything. I asked for so many people and I had so many doors shut right on my face.
It's not even funny.
People that used to sleep on my couch, come to my parties, drink my champagne, swim in
my swimming pool, acted like they did not even know me.
Now I laugh about it because in a way, it was such an amazing wake up call for me because
I was so naive.
I thought, oh, everybody's your friend. Everybody's your friend.
And now I know that it's not the case at all. So in so many ways, it was such a good experience.
But at the time, I really, really believed I was surrounded by friends. But the truth is, once he died and all the wealth and all the fluff and all that stuff was gone, all the people around me were gone as well.
So anyways, I started over, I packed up my bags, I packed up my dog, Giza, and I said, you know what, I'm going to move back to California, which is where my roots are from, which is where I feel at home, and I'm going to start my life over. But the funny thing is, because of course, the podcast about sex, dating and relationships.
Once I felt a little stronger to start dating again, for some reason, and I know the reason today, every time I started dating someone, I started repeating the pattern of dating people that were abusive to me. And now I know why.
Because I was still acting like a victim of abuse. So the first boyfriend that I had after Anthony died was a very well-respected executive businessman.
And I told him my story and he was like, oh, I'm gonna help you. You're amazing.
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Turns out the guy was a huge humanizer, a hell of a liar.
I caught him lying on Valentine's Day and I told the story before on past episodes. I was waiting for him on Valentine's Day at his house exactly the way he told me.
He pictured this, wearing sexy lingerie in his bed because he told me he was having a meeting with executives from out of town, blah, blah, blah. And at the same time, he was having sex with his ex-girlfriend and giving her gifts.
And then he came home to me and jumped in bed with me. And the only reason why I found out is because the ex-girlfriend followed him home and told me everything and showed me proof, showed me videos.
The guy was a freaking pig. And I forgave him because I had this victim mentality.
I thought that was the best I could get. I thought it was okay to accept people treating me like that.
I forgave him. We dated one extra year.
And a year later, on my birthday, same thing. He said he couldn't take me out to dinner.
He spent the whole day with me. And at night, he said he couldn't take me out to dinner because he was going to have a super important business dinner with some executives from out of town.
And turned out he was cheating on me with a woman at one of our favorite restaurants. My friends saw him, called me.
I drove all the way there on my birthday, saw it with my own eyes. He was having a date with a woman and I saw it.
So, I mean, I kept, it's my fault because the guy was a pig. The guy was a womanizer.
He was a liar. I was accepting that behavior because I kept repeating the pattern of dating somebody that was abusing me and thinking, okay, maybe, you know, this is the best I can get.
and a lot of girls, because I get messages from girls, women from all over the world, that we start believing. Remember I said when you get called a stupid idiot, a fucking moron, a dumb ass, you start believing that that's what you are.
And even when you move on to the next person, even if they treat you like shit, you end up accepting their behavior because you think, oh, well, yeah, I guess it's okay to be treated like that. So funny enough, guy after guy after guy, they kept treating me like shit.
So after, and by the way, this, this boyfriend, you guys are not going to believe that, but it's a true story. He was cheating on me on my birthday with some girl.
And that was the year that COVID started. My birthday is March 6th today, March 6th.
So the year COVID started, March 6th, 2020, he caught COVID from this girl that he was cheating on me with. He ended up in the hospital because of COVID.
He called me several times to apologize for cheating on me. And very sad story, but it's a true story.
He died. He died.
He was not even that old. He was in his 50s, apparently great health, but he died from COVID in the hospital.
And I remember at the time my girlfriend said, oh, it's karma. It's karma.
I don't like thinking like that. I don't want to wish anything bad on anyone.
But yeah, that was the story. And after him, when COVID hit, I was sad, crying, na, na, na, because he cheated on me, whatever.
And my neighbors introduced me to one of their friends. I started dating the guy, everybody bored, bored, bored at home.
I started dating this dude. And this dude is hanging out with me at my apartment, staying there almost every night, drinking my wine, eating my food, watching my movies, sleeping there, na-na-na, and the same thing, calling me names, criticizing my hair, hey, you stupid idiot, you know, I don't like this, I don't like that, hey, shut the fuck up.
And for months during COVID, I'm sitting there being abused by this narcissist asshole. And that's when I started the podcast because I was sitting there with so much free time.
And I'm like, you know what, I'm going to vent about all these experiences that I'm going through. and I started getting messages from men and from women.
Oh my God, me too, me too, me too.
Oh my God, me too, me too, me too. Oh my God, I can't believe this happened to me.
And I'm like, wow, I hit a nerve because I think all of us have experiences that we want to share. And finally, I think when I started telling my stories out loud, I was like, wow, why the hell am I accepting to be treated like this over and over and over again? What the hell is wrong with you? But it was a process for me to realize that, wait a minute, it's not okay to call someone names.
It's not okay. Even if you do something that annoys the person, it's not okay to say, hey, you stupid idiot.
Hey, you fucking bitch. Hey, you piece of shit.
It's horrible. It's detrimental.
It's rude. It's abusive.
But funny enough, I kept repeating the pattern over and over and over again. And I think the best way to break it, at least for me, and I know because a lot of you guys send me this question, how did you break it? How did you change? How did you change? And I tell you, first for me was doing the podcast, saying it out loud.
But of course, a lot of you listening don't do podcasts. So this is how you change it.
And it sounds silly, but it's the most honest truth. You need to start shifting the focus to yourself.
You need to give yourself so much love. You really, really, really need to believe with every fiber of your being that you are worthy of being treated with all the respect in the world, with all the kindness in the world, and that there is no man, there is nobody in this universe that deserves you unless they treat you like that.
And the minute somebody disrespects you, even if it's once, you need to walk away. The minute somebody doesn't do everything that you deserve in a relationship, you need to walk away.
You cannot lower your standards like I did. Like this is the deal breaker.
Like nowadays, and I say that happily and proudly, I'm still single. I'm still searching for my fairy tale.
I'm still searching for my perfect someone. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up on finding love because I'm a true believer in love.
And I think if you give up, all these losers, all these suckers, all these assholes win. So you got to keep going.
But I'm a firm, firm believer that you got to raise your standards. You got to know what a prize you are.
You got to know what a rare diamond you are. You got gotta know what you have to offer.
And if we keep accepting abuse, like I said, the day I accepted my boyfriend smacking me and I didn't say anything, the day I accept being called a stupid idiot, a fucking piece of shit, a thief, a Latin cunt, whatever it is, oh my god, every name in the book you guys can think of, I was called over and over and over again. I kept lowering and lowering and lowering my standard.
I kept disrespecting myself. And if we disrespect ourselves, the person that we are with is going to disrespect us.
So it sounds silly, but it's insanely important. Respect and self-love starts with us and we need to put it like way up there, up in the sky.
So now when I go date someone and I tell anybody that I might date, I know what I want. I know what I don't tolerate.
I know what I'm looking for. I don't want crumbs.
I don't want half ass. I want the whole enchilada, like one of my favorite, favorite, favorite movies in the world.
I've watched it a million times because I'm a sucker for a fairy tale, pretty woman. And remember towards the end when he asks, he offers her the apartment and money and everything.
She's like, no. And he's like, what do you want? And she says, I want the fairy tale.
And I think I'm at this point in my life because of everything I've been through and so many abusive men. And then even the men that weren't abusive, the immature man, the narcissistic men, the men that don't know what they want and the men that want to play the field and the men that are like, oh, maybe I'm ready for a relationship.
Maybe I'm not. Maybe there is something better out there.
I mean, you know, I don't want any of that. I want somebody who is ready for love, who is ready for a mature, fulfilling relationship.
But yes, I want the fairy tale because we deserve the fairy tale. We deserve it all.
We deserve a partner that loves us unconditionally, that is going to go all out for us. So if you are in any kind of relationship that is not fulfilling you one million percent, even if you're feeling like stuck, like I felt stuck in that marriage for so long, even if you're feeling like you don't know how to start over, I promise you, you can always start over.
I've been starting over for years. I'm still not there yet.
Don't believe everything you see on social media. People see gorgeous pictures, gorgeous videos, everything on social media.
They see me at events. I get this message.
Oh, you're rich. This is why you're at these events.
And I'm like, dude, I work my ass off seven days a week, crazy, crazy, insane hours to do what I do. And every time I go to an event and everything, it's always work related.
Believe me, I work so hard to achieve the little, little, little things that I have, because I had to start from zero all over again once Anthony died in 2018. And I wasn't in my 20s.
I was in my 40s. And I had everything taken away from me.
So no matter how stuck you feel you are, no matter how desperate you feel you are, no matter how hopeless you feel you are, I promise you there is always a way you have that fire within you don't stay stay with a shitty partner. Don't waste your time.
Don't allow anybody to abuse you. Don't allow anybody to call your names.
Don't allow anybody to touch you in any disrespectful or aggressive way. Get the hell out because I know your princess out there trying to find you the same way I know my princess out there trying to find me for sure.
So if you're listening to me, boys and girls, if you've had your heart broken, if you're suffering because somebody dumped you, if you're frustrated or if you're feeling bad for yourself, if you're stuck in an unhappy relationship, do yourself a huge favor and stop for a minute as hard as it is. Look at yourself in the mirror.
Remember your very, very best qualities. Put your favorite outfit on, your favorite outfit on.
Don't save it for that special occasion. Put your fierce red lipstick on, whatever it is that makes you feel incredible.
Remember your best assets, remember your best qualities, and remember that when somebody leaves you, and believe me, it has happened to me so many times, it's their loss. It really is their loss because this is how I feel about my exes.
They're missing out on a diamond. I'm a fantastic partner.
I'm sweet. I am loyal.
I'm an incredible friend. I am caring.
I am giving. I am sexual.
I am hot as fuck. I have incredible energy.
I am nice as pie. So, I mean, usually what I say is like, you know, of course it hurts.
Of course we cry. But, you know, the heart mends and it moves on.
And after that, you have to say thank you. Thank you, because you're just paving the way for the right person to find us.
So you need to move on. But remember, if you stay with the wrong person, the right person is passing you by.
So you're wasting time with the wrong person and not allowing the right person to find you. So don't do that.
Many, many times, like I did, I spent 14 years trying to fix an alcoholic, believing he was going to stop drinking for me, believing he was going to stop calling me names, believing he was going to stop be better for me. And it's never going to happen.
Nobody's going to change for you. Save yourself.
Go live your best life. It's cheesy.
It's corny. But yeah, life is insanely short.
It changes in the snap of a finger. We need to be happy today.
And this is why I decided to do this episode on my birthday. I don't know if you guys do that, but every time I have a birthday, I do like a major reassessment, major.
I sit down, I'm like, okay, this is working. This is not working.
I need to do this better. I need to do that better.
To me, it's like almost reading like a new book. I am so grateful to be alive.
I think I look amazing. I look hot.
I take great care of myself. I am full of energy.
Okay, this relationship doesn't work. That relationship didn't work.
What can I do better from now on? How can I improve on this area, on that area, on that area? It's a great time to move forward. Let's move forward with people that gives us a hundred percent, a million percent of everything we deserve.
I'm an eternal, eternal believer in love. I think it keeps us going.
I'm a sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker for love. And I'm going to quote one more of my favorite TV shows.
You guys probably love as well. And you probably remember Carrie Bradshaw when she looked at Mr.
Big in one of the episodes. And she tells him, I want love, real love, ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't live without each other love.
And I think that summarizes what I'm looking for and what I hope all of us is looking for. I definitely want a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic love story.
No drama, no lies, just absurdly fabulous love because I think we all deserve that. Many, many kisses.
I'm going to go celebrate my birthday a little bit. I'll see you guys next week with one more very special episode.
Thank you all so much for listening. I love you so, so much.
And don't forget to go watch all the video episodes on all my social media platforms and on YouTube and take good care of yourselves. Big shout out to the Burrata House, one of my favorite casual dining places in the heart of West Hollywood.
They make authentic, delicious, fresh Italian food, sandwiches, pasta, salads with the delicious, delicious fresh burrata on top on 161 South Crescent Heights. So if you're looking for a place that you can have a quick bite for lunch, dinner, takeout for your family, this is it.
And I love, of course, supporting local businesses. So if you guys are in the Los Angeles area, West Hollywood, go check out the Burrata House.
If you guys want to see pictures, burrathouse.com on Instagram, burrathouse. I love, love, love their food so much.
Everything is really, really yummy. Not only I'm a huge supporter of women supporting women, but I have so many amazing guy friends in my industry.
So I want to give two big shout outs to people that also do podcasts and radio stations. It's such a tough business.
So big, big shout outs to other podcasts that I love very, very, very much. And I always say there is room for everybody.
I think we need to stop looking at each other as competition, competition, competition, and more looking at each other as co-workers, looking at each other as collaborators, because like I said, if we're authentic, we should all do our thing and there is space for everybody. So if you guys love sports, I highly recommend check out Aira on Sports, one of the top sports podcasts in the nation by Ira Kaufman.
Ira is a walking encyclopedia of sports. He follows sports no matter what it is, football, volleyball, tennis, golf, you name it.
He's there up and down the country, everywhere. Amazing guest interviews.
He drops new episodes every Monday. He is incredible he's in all the games he always has exclusive photos exclusive videos on Instagram on Twitter Aira on Sports I highly recommend you guys check it out I love it and if you're a huge fan of country music I love it check out Kick-Ass Country Radio you can listen everywhere go.
You can get all the links through their Instagram, Kick-Ass Country Music, so you can get your country vibe on the
go. Big shout out to them.
They're my friends out of Texas, and I love them. Kick-Ass, many,
many kisses for you guys.