danielle-staub

Danielle Staub has made her mark on “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” by being the lone single housewife (huh?) and bragging about having a black American Express Card since, like, forever ago.  More interestingly, she may very well have a shady past of drugs, stripping, and criminal behavior.  RAWR!

In the out-of-print memoir Cop without a Badge, felon-turned-informant Kevin Maher writes about Beverly Merrill, a stripper who was out on bail when they met at a Miami drug party — a woman who just happens to look like Danielle might have looked 20 years ago.  Get yourself comfortable, because here comes a heaping serving of Awesome:danielle-staub-mugshot

Let’s meet Bev: “She was brunette. Long, perfectly shaped legs poked out of her leather hot pants just as provocatively as her braless breasts strained against her low-cut blouse.” And no, she wasn’t wearing any underwear. After she and Maher have “explosive sex,” he thinks to himself, “This is a good person. She has no morals, but she’s a good person.” [...]

Unfortunately, Beverly turns out to be a “coke whore.” That’s okay at first, because Maher likes coke too. But he really doesn’t like her sleeping with other guys. So Maher confronts another one of her boyfriends at the Bennigan’s in Saddle Brook, sticks a gun in his crotch, and makes him confess. By this time, Beverly Merrill is now dancing at various North Jersey establishments under the name Danielle. Maher, deciding he wants to have a kid but that Beverly isn’t “mother material,” eventually splits up with her. According to the epilogue, Maher last saw her in 1992 dancing at a club called Shakers in Carlstadt. [NJ.com]

Holy crap, this show just got 800,000 percent better.  If Bravo’s going to keep making “Real Housewives” shows, this should be a stipulation of every new installment: at least one of the characters has to have a shady past.  Preferably drugs and stripping.  That’s the best kind of shady past.