Real Housewives of Rhode Island star Jo-Ellen Tiberi had some “hesitation” when it came to discussing her childhood on the show.
“It’s extremely private to me,” Jo-Ellen told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of the Sunday, May 10, episode of RHORI. “My past is what’s shaped me and who I am today. I’m not embarrassed of it. It’s just not something I typically would publicize for the world.”
Jo-Ellen felt like discussing what happened during her teenage years on camera would help viewers to understand her more.
“It is heavy. This is not something that, I feel like, Bravo has ever really touched on when you’re talking about homelessness, or if you’re talking about suicide, or if you’re talking about depression, being sent away,” she explained. “Those are really heavy topics. This is my real life.”
She continued, “It’s a hard topic to talk about.”
Jo-Ellen noted that she was “shocked” when she started receiving messages from viewers who “understand” what she’s experiencing with her mother.
“I feel good that I let it out there. I’m showing that if I got through it, so can you,” she said. “If anything comes from this, it’s that people can see it’s OK [and] things will get better.”
During Sunday’s RHORI episode, Jo-Ellen got emotional as she opened up to costar Alicia Carmody about her experiences in three different behavioral programs as a teenager .
“What did I do that was so bad that you put me in places with rapists, with murderers, with people that stab people, with, like, convicts,” Jo-Ellen wondered, adding that “99 percent of the people there were court ordered.”
In a confessional, Jo-Ellen explained that her mom was the “opposite” of a maternal figure while she was growing up.
“My mom tells me that she sent me to these places because she didn’t know what to do or how to control me,” Jo-Ellen added. “I wasn’t an out of control kid. I was a straight-A student. Her biggest problem with me was I had big boobs and boys liked me. She felt that I was promiscuous, even when I wasn’t doing anything.”
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The first time Jo-Ellen was “sent away,” she went to a drug rehab in the seventh grade, but she had “never” done drugs. She was sent home after one week. The second place was “really rough,” but Jo-Ellen said the third — when she was in ninth grade — was “the worst.”
“My mom ended up giving partial custody to the state because her insurance stopped paying and she had me there for a little over a year,” she said. “It was really not normal and not a good place.”
Jo-Ellen said her mom called it “a boarding school,” which it was not. She left the facility after the state tried to take “100 percent control” of Jo-Ellen.
“I really try to block all of this out because it was a really bad time in my life. I was suicidal,” she said. “Many times for me, death was better than living with her. It hurts a lot to have no one that loves you growing up.”
While speaking with Us, Jo-Ellen revealed she’s “trying to improve” her relationship with her mom.
“My mom’s very, very proud of me. She’s very excited for what’s happened,” Jo-Ellen shared. “It’s a work in progress.”
New episodes of The Real Housewives of Rhode Island premiere via Bravo on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET and stream via Peacock the next day.
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