By Kimberly Chun
Real Housewives of New Jersey: down-to-earth, grown-up Jersey girls – or The Sopranos with big hair, McMansions, and surgically enhanced “bubbies”? I was dying to know after getting sucked into the show’s sneak-preview special – now being aired nonstop on Bravo – so I took a peek into a conference call arranged by NBC Universal-Bravo. On the line: the tough-talking, red-headed matriarch Caroline Manzo, who comes off as softer and much less malevolent sans dramatic edits, and her dark-eyed, down-low sister-in-law Jacqueline Laurita. The Real Housewives of New Jersey premieres tonight, May 12, with a new episode every Tuesday night on Bravo.
Q: Caroline, my first question’s for you. I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the early years leading up to the life you have now.
Caroline Manzo: Sure. I met my husband actually 28 years ago. We will be celebrating our 25th anniversary this July. And when we first started the Brownstone was a very, very young business in its infancy, at least for the Manzo family, and we struggled. My husband, at that time, made less than $200 a week, and we lived in a small apartment above the Brownstone, and we lived there for a couple of years, and then we had our first son, Albie.