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Credit score: Instagram
Lexi Ioannou opened up about her “uncomfortable” relationship together with her former stepfather, Tommy Manzo, whereas showing on Gia Giudice‘s podcast on Monday.
As she additionally admitted to being petrified of Tommy, mirrored on his devastating divorce from her mom, Dina Manzo, 53, and defined why she now has closure, the 29-year-old Actual Housewives of New Jersey alum revealed that Tommy had a “bizarre obsession” together with her and made her “very uncomfortable” in the course of the years he was married to Dina.
“He held onto my issues for 10 years and used them as [collateral] as a result of he had this bizarre obsession with me,” Lexi shared on the Might 26 episode of Informal Chaos. “For years, folks would inform me he stored my room precisely the identical as a result of he thought I used to be gonna come again. I can’t even start to grasp why he would assume I might ever come again there.”
In line with Lexi, she felt that Tommy “actually beloved [her]” as a result of she was the closest factor he needed to a baby of his personal.
“He was by no means inappropriate, however he positively was very affectionate, and that was one thing I used to be very uncomfortable with as a result of neither of my mother and father have been that method,” she defined. “[It was] form of like, additional unusual … and I used to be advised him to pay him that form of affection out of respect, subsequently I felt like the connection was very uncomfortable for me.”
Whereas Lexi famous that Tommy was “by no means round,” she mentioned he made a degree to maintain her childhood heirlooms after splitting from Dina so he would “have one thing to carry over me.”
After their cut up, Tommy was accused of not solely hiring an alleged mobster to assault Dina’s now-husband, Dave Cantin, in 2015, but additionally being linked to a house invasion during which each Dina and Dave have been left injured. And on the finish of final yr, Tommy was sentenced to seven years in jail for the 2015 incident.
“The week earlier than he went away, he referred to as me, and I didn’t decide up as a result of I had a restraining order that the FBI put in place. So he referred to as me and I used to be like frozen in concern,” Lexi shared. “I do know all the things he’s completed and the way he did it, and I believe he was most likely calling concerning the issues as a result of he knew that that was the one cause that I might contemplate choosing up.”
Wanting again, Lexi wished she had picked up.
“As a result of now I’ve the angle of like, ‘I dare you to name me.’ I’m so indignant. Actually,” she defined. “And I’ve needed to course of a lot of that anger, mourn that these issues have been there, they usually’re positively gone now. He stored these issues.”
In line with Lexi, the final time she spoke to Tommy was “proper earlier than” the house invasion. And through that decision, after Tommy advised her he wished to fulfill the person she was relationship on the time, she advised him he couldn’t till he gave her her issues again.
“He was nonetheless holding them towards me,” she famous.
Though Lexi and Tommy finally stopped speaking, they did have a relationship for a while after his divorce from Dina.
“He was begging to have a relationship with me, and he was manipulating me. After I look again, it was pure manipulation, and I felt so torn on what to do, however I knew he wasn’t a very good man, and I knew he wasn’t good by my mother,” she revealed. “We had a sense he’d completed some horrible issues, however we didn’t have proof of it, and he put me in a really horrible place for a really very long time.”
“I lived in concern for therefore lengthy, and I used to be silenced by my concern, by upsetting anybody in my household, by angering him, and frightening him to do one thing. I used to be in that concern till actually not too long ago,” Lexi continued. “As soon as I sat within the courtroom and I noticed that I used to be the bear, he was the one about to go away for the issues he did, my household [was] those that have been embarrassed by the issues that they did. Why ought to I concern them? They need to concern me.”
After opening up about her expertise with Tommy and the Manzo household in a weblog publish and now on Gia’s podcast, Lexi mentioned that her claims could really feel “massive.” Nevertheless, in terms of what she might say, there’s a lot extra.
“I might go on for days about what I might say about all these folks, and I nonetheless don’t. I wish to have respect,” she famous.
Wanting again on Dina and Tommy’s divorce and the assaults that adopted, Lexi mentioned that she and her mother are “nonetheless” in shock.
“It’s like, how did this turn out to be actuality?” she questioned.
Fortunately, with Tommy behind bars, Lexi has gotten her closure.
“Sitting and watching that trial, seeing him stand there … I noticed all the things simply so I might form of perceive, ‘That is actuality.’ After which I believe I form of simply realized, what am I afraid of? It nonetheless feels uncomfortable … However why? It’s my fact. It’s my expertise,” she declared.
Additionally on the podcast episode, Lexi admitted to feeling deserted by her household.
“I’ve been upset, and no one referred to as me for years. I referred to as them … I used to be simply caught within the crossfire of all of it. Additionally, the chaos of what occurred with Tommy and the obsession, I needed to take care of all that by myself,” she acknowledged.
“No person in my household ever prolonged any consolation [to] me, they usually all knew the issues that have been coming to mild,” she added.
