I missed the second part of last nights Reunion show. Thanks to NJ.com, they have a nice recap which I have read before I watch it on TIVO. I think it’s safe to say, most people don’t realize what they are signing up for when they decide to do a reality show. It gets kinda crazy, your personal life becomes everyones business, and skeletons you thought were packed in the closet come flying out.

NJ.com says:

“The Real Housewives of New Jersey” reunion show served up harsh words, tears, a teeny bit of crow-eating, and a little legal lesson courtesy of Caroline Manzo: Danielle Staub’s “spoken proof” that Dina Manzo spread word of her unsavory past around town is what the legal system likes to call, as Caroline points out, hearsay.

Caroline and Dina manage to convince Danielle that Dina did not, in fact, plaster NC-17 outtakes from “Cop Without a Badge” in the Franklin Lakes town square, and Danielle admits that she might have been fed bad info. She says she lashed out throughout the first season because she was in a bad place, and Dina seems to accept that, and even allows that, given time, she might be able to be friends with Danielle. Caroline, however, can’t. There’s a mysterious-to-viewers back-and-forth about something that Danielle did to Dina that the women refuse to talk about, but it’s enough to put Danielle in Caroline’s bad graces forever.

“You are garbage, and you are disgraceful,” Caroline says, crying. “I will never forgive her, and you will never be a friend of me.” Nothing like ending the season on a cheery note!

Earlier in the evening, programming veep Andy Cohen asks the question we’ve all wondered about: Why would Danielle go on a show like this knowing she had a past like that? Danielle seems to think it would have stayed hidden if the Manzos hadn’t found out about it. Dina that they heard about the book from her niece, who had been told about it by one of Danielle’s friends. “I disliked you prior to the book,” Caroline says. “When I found the book, I disliked you ever more, and I lost any kind of faith or trust, anything I had in you.” How could Danielle fault her for investigating this, Caroline asks.

Caroline then claims that three friends asked her about the book while she was at the hair salon, so she told them what she knew. Danielle finds it veddy interesting that they knew about the book before Caroline told them. Caroline claims that the stories were already swirling around town. Of course they were, Dina says: Danielle was in the spotlight, she’s filming a reality show, people start talking, and Danielle admitted herself that a few of her Wayne friends had known about the book.

When Caroline breaks down the salon conversation in detail, Danielle is finally forced to admit that what she heard from other people may not be entirely accurate, but says she wouldn’t apologize for other people feeding her lines and turning her against Dina. “I have evolved from that and I’m a different person now, and I see that I shouldn’t have done and listened to other people and formed my judgment on that. What I did was wrong.” But she’s not going to apologize!

Danielle also offered up a few details on her past: She was born to a teenage mother, was adopted by an abusive family, raped at the age of 8, and left home “very, very young.” “I was brutalized, and I felt like (Kevin Maher, her first ex-husband) terrorized my life,” she says, breaking down in tears. “I might have said some wrong things, but I can’t apologize for the things that happened to me since I was a baby … You’re all so blessed to have such wonderful families. I’m really happy for you, but maybe one day you might see my heart and see that I wasn’t so lucky to have that.”

Well, fortunately for Danielle Staub, she’s the breakout star of the show. The women with a past, the girl you love to hate, the kind of chick guys want to sleep with, but don’t want to marry. I’m sure there will be a second season, Danielle will be paid the big bucks, and hopefully she will find a man who will treat her right.

In other rumors, some people day Danielle hit on Dina’s husband or had an affair with him. Is it true? Who knows? Definitely one of my favorite seasons.