Review | Who is Ramona Singer?
Review | Who is Ramona Singer?
My favorite line that she has ever said, that says everything about her persona on The Real Housewives of New York, was when she was in Turks & Caicos with the girls and announces on camera: “This is Michael Kors, from the high-end collection.” And that was what confirmed all of my inner-debate of whether or not I like her. Honey, there is no such thing as high-end Michael Kors. What a joke — but then again, I think she’s (now) Florida trash.
She’s notorious for being two things on the show: 1) incredibly unfiltered, offensive and 2) for being part one of two of the drunken duo that is Ramonja.
Overview
Ramona Singer Wikipedia: Unfortunately, she’s not important or famous enough to have her own individual wiki page, but you can self-serve from a subsection of the RHONY directory.
Ramona Singer Age: 63
Ramona Singer’s Instagram: @ramonasinger
Ramona Singer Net Worth: Ramona Singer is estimated by Celebritynetworth to be worth about $18m, which is not chump change. You have to give it to her because she leveraged RHONY to launch several business lines — the most notable being her Ramona Pinot Grigio, which she is notorious for slinging back bottles of on the show.
Offensive Personality
Probably the most controversial thing about Ramona is her unabashed mouth where, when confronted with a misstep that she may have made, she throws non-sequiturs out at her opponent as quickly as possible to distract them (especially if they’re novices in verbal fighting and get hung up on it) or to defame their character (which is often a defense mechanism but is appalling to say the least).
There were three very despicable things that offended me beyond belief that made me realize that this woman has some clearly invasive insecurity issues:
Proclaiming that her marriage was better than her cast-mate LuAnn’s
(“I have a wonderful marriage of 18 years, and I’m not with a man who cheats on me left and right.” At least the world shut her up by giving her the horrible things she said about other people.)Looking down upon people who have less because she has married wealth
(“Who wants to go to the Berkshires? People who have houses in the Berkshires can’t afford to live in the Hamptons.” Karma slap #2 would be that most of her wealth is from her husband’s ‘third-generation business’ and she can cling onto that private label wine.)Weaving an elaborate story about her history of abuse to leave to a party
(“I can’t be here, it brings up memories of my father.” And what feels like a riveting, genuine cry turns out to be her trying to plan a getaway back to the Hamptons from the Berkshire, where we discover that she attends a party. The worst — it was pre-planned because she had agreed to sponsor with her wine.)
Those are horrible, indeed, but perhaps the most vile part of her character on the show is that she manipulates this woman — Sonja Morgan — into thinking that because they’ve been friends for over a decade that she is always looking out for her. Clip after clip, season after season, we witness Ramona throw some horrible daggers to defame Sonja’s character and preserve her relationship with Sonja by being the first to tell her what the other women said about Sonja, conveniently leaving out parts of the recorded clips where she paves the way for the negativity.
She takes advantage of this woman who is delusional, in more debt than one can imagine, and vulnerable from a failed marriage, but the woman is of course too much in a drunken La La Land to really understand what is happening. It’s actually quite sad to watch because her friend Sonja is in desperate need of rehabilitation but Ramona doesn’t encourage her to get help. It is an fan-favorite outsider, Bethenny Frankel, that has the courage to be the friend that she needs and insists that she gets help.
Drunken Debauchery
Cutely referred to as ‘frick and fracking’ or ‘Ramonja’, she is supported by the other part of her duo — Sonja, the failed socialite who was formerly married to American royalty, the grandson of the man who started the J. P. Morgan Chase franchise. The most frightening part of their duo is that they get so belligerently drunk that they say some of the most awful things and forget that those words even came out of their mouth; it causes a lot of rift and drama within the girls season-after-season but Bravo knows that they can monetize an incredible amount off of their disastrous friendship.
While she enables her so-called ‘best friend’ to drink herself to no return, she leverages that buddy-buddy relationship to create conflict with other women. It is clear that she can’t launch into fights where she holds her ground, so she strategically latches onto this other sad lost soul to wage war on the others. It’s a spectacular relationship to watch because both women suffer from what seems to be intentionally memory loss as well as a general lack of respect for anyone other than themselves.
Balanced Perspective
I really struggled with her character, particularly when it finally came out that her husband of 18+ years had cheated on her so publicly by running off with his mistress. My initial reaction was similar to her cast-mate’s reaction: “Karma.” And the reality is that after seasons of her throwing hits below the belt and denouncing other people’s marriages like she is the authority of a perfect marriage, that life gave her exactly what she deserved by putting a mirror in front of her face to stop her from projecting onto others.
Yet despite this, in Season 7, she really starts off with such an air of humility and positivity that you can’t help but really empathize with her; I wanted to give her a free pass because of the horrific experience she was persevering through from her ex-husband cheating on her with a significantly younger woman. I also wanted to believe that she became a more loving, patient person. This only lasts a few moments, though, because she quickly reverts back to her original self (people don’t really change, do they?) by throwing in shady, back-handed comments and lies to her bff’s face. Clips of her apologizing and creating peace treaties among the women are negated in the immediate next scene where she will run to Sonja or another woman in the circle and slander the woman she just apologized to. She is no saint, yet she can fool a grown 50-something woman, and many 50-something women across the nation, to believe that she is for decades to come.
Conclusion
At $500,000 per season, she offers a whole lot of drama packed in one little Oompa Loompa-sized lady. It’s a love/hate relationship for me but I couldn’t imagine the show without her because it would be too amiable, like a story of sisterhood. Her vulgar and intense personality is placed between some sane and some not-so-sane women for a reason.