While most of us were struggling to change out of sweats and wash our hair during quarantine, The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Dolores Catania was using the downtime to take care of some long-awaited self-improvements. After years of health-related weight gain and failed attempts to lose it, the reality TV star shed a dramatic 40 pounds last year, but in order to address the extra skin she now had, she knew she’d have to turn to surgery. No stranger to cosmetic procedures, the 49-year old decided she would get a tummy tuck, but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit and put her life—and the RHONJ filming schedule—on pause that she finally found the time to do it. We caught up with Catania to chat about her recent tummy tuck, other treatments she’s gotten over the years, and why she thinks plastic surgery should be discussed openly.
RealSelf: When did you first start considering a tummy tuck?
Dolores Catania: I have been a yo-yo dieter for a long, long time. It started because I had a thyroid issue, and it was misdiagnosed, so my weight went up and down. I stopped working out and kind of fell into a funk. My whole life I worked out—I mean, I was married to Mr. New Jersey [her ex, Frank Catania, is a former bodybuilder]—so health and fitness and looking good were a very big deal in my life. But once my thyroid was off, I gained 40 pounds in a year, then I couldn’t lose it for a while, and when I finally did, I had some extra skin. I know enough about working out, bodybuilding, and weight loss to know that no matter how much I did work out, now that I have my thyroid and my hormones straight, there were parts of my body that needed to be fixed.
RS: Why did you decide to do your tummy tuck now?
DC: This was at least two years in the making, but there was always a timing issue. When was I going to have the time to do this? And what better time than these days, when everything is closed and we’re between filming? Every bit of doing this now was related to that. When I wasn’t filming, we still had our parties, our events, our red carpets, our philanthropy, our fundraisers—things that maybe we filmed four months out of the year but we still did every day. When that was all halted with the pandemic, it just seemed like the perfect time.
RS: How did you find your doctor, Dr. Joseph Michaels?
DC: I know what it’s like when people lose weight and they have a lot of extra skin. No matter what they’ve gone through to have that weight loss, they now have to work on having the skin removed. I haven’t always seen the best results, because it is a high-risk surgery, and it’s a lot of work. It’s not asking for a little nip-tuck—it’s like removing a suit from someone’s body. So I spoke to one girl who had an amazing weight-loss transformation, and she said that if she could make it to Maryland, she would go to Dr. Joseph Michaels and that he’s amazing.
I looked on his site at before-and-afters, and I almost couldn’t believe it. It was just too good to be true; I literally was in awe of his work. I know what it takes to get the sutures so small on such a big surgery and to get the scars to be so minuscule. Everything that he did, whether it was boobs, butt, tummy tuck, I researched and researched and just kept staring at it in disbelief until finally, I was like, This is my guy. I reached out, and after I had a virtual consultation with him, I saw that his bedside manner was just so great. He’s the utmost gentleman, and I could see that he truly, truly cares about his patients. There was no question at all.
RS: You opted to do some liposuction and a Brazilian butt lift alongside your tummy tuck. How did that go?
DC: I did have 360 lipo with it, and I also had a little fat transfer. I had a Brazilian butt lift with Dr. David Greuner five years ago, but a lot has happened since then, so Dr. Michaels just tweaked it a little bit and made it a little rounder. The first BBL was a rough one, and that’s probably why I took some time off before doing work again, but the second time around, I wasn’t worried because what he was doing was just a simple fat transfer. It was the tummy tuck that was rough. A tummy tuck is not for the faint of heart. It is a big decision to be made, and you’d better make sure it’s done right. Otherwise, you could end up looking like a shark bit you in half. So I was nervous, but it was something that I’d been thinking about for a very long time, and I was now ready to do it.
But it’s not an easy thing. You really can’t move, and you come home with drains, and you really have to relax. You have to stay in bed and I can never sit still, so that was really the hardest part. It’s been four weeks now, and I’m still being very careful. I’m still a little sore and have limited movement, but I’m absolutely not sorry I did it. Honestly, I’m sorry I waited, but the reason I did was to find the right doctor.
RS: What was it like to have out-of-state surgery in the midst of a pandemic?
DC: I had my friend drive me. That’s what a good friend does. It was a four-and-a-half-hour drive, but I honestly would have driven across the country for Dr. Michaels. My friend, who’s a nurse and who I used to be in the OR with [Catania was a surgical assistant], took very good care of me overnight, but it was a little rough when I came home the next day.
The worst part about it is that when you do something elective and you have your family standing over you, very worried (I come from a very close-knit Italian family), I feel bad that I did that. I know their concern comes from a good place, but ultimately, they have to get over it. My mother is the typical Italian mother who gets hysterical over these things. I came home from surgery and basically passed out, and I woke up to see my brother, my father, my sister, and my mother cooking for me. That’s what got me in trouble in the first place—pasta and meatballs—and that’s what I woke up to!
RS: How did your family initially react to your decision to get the surgery?
DC: I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it until the night before, when I was packing to go to Maryland, and they took it pretty badly. My boyfriend almost broke up with me! He’s a perinatologist and he’s against elective surgery, but he’s also not a woman and doesn’t really understand. He said, “I like you just the way you are,” but I didn’t like me just the way I was. It’s beautiful to hear, but this surgery was motivated by me. It was not because someone told me I didn’t look good or because I wanted to look better next to the other girls. It’s nothing to do with anything but the fact that I needed it for myself.
RS: Is your boyfriend still upset, even after seeing how happy you are?
DC: Upset? For four weeks, he’s barely spoken to me! Every day, he says, “You didn’t need to do that.” But you know what? I did it, and if you don’t like it, that’s too bad. It’s flattering to have someone say “I love you the way you are, and you don’t need that,” but flattering is all it is to me.
But now my boyfriend keeps saying, “One more thing, and I’m breaking up with you for good,” and I keep telling him that there will be one more thing, there will be three more things, or four more things, down the road. I’m not done. He needs to support me. I support him. He rides motorcycles, and that’s more dangerous than plastic surgery! I don’t even want to push the whole motorcycle thing because I don’t want to hear him then tell me not to get surgery. It’s all a trade-off.
RS: Being in the public eye and on RHONJ comes with its fair share of critics. Have other people’s comments ever informed the way you see yourself?
DC: No, I had work done long before I was on the Housewives. It’s me. But when you see yourself on TV, you do think, Oh, I need to go on a diet or I’ll never wear those pants again. And they say the camera puts 10 pounds on you. I’m not sure if that’s a myth or not. I’d like to think it’s true, but I don’t know. I don’t usually see the bad stuff written about me. I’m a pretty thick-skinned person, and if I weren’t, I wouldn’t survive a day in this world. Everything I do, body-wise, is for myself. I mean, I want people to like me, but if they don’t, I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
RS: You’ve spoken candidly about your cosmetic surgery, especially your facelift, in the past. What do you think people should know before getting a procedure?
DC: I got a facelift about five years ago, and my before-and-afters were just insane. I know there are very good doctors everywhere, but I’m a surgical assistant by trade, so I know good work when I see it. I don’t care if the surgeon is on Park Avenue or if they’re in a little town like Wall Township, [New Jersey,] where my doctor, Dr. Mark Karolak, was. The misconception is that your doctor has to have the fanciest office and work on popular people for them to be good, but that’s not always the case. It’s really the surgeon themselves.
One thing you have to know about plastic surgery, and any surgery, is that it involves scar tissue underneath when it’s healed, so you want to get it right the first time. If you need a revision and you have to go get your face or body fixed because someone else screwed it up, that’s not going to be an easy surgery. A lot of doctors won’t even want to touch it, and it will cost you as much money as the first surgery, if not more. That’s why I’m a stickler about going to the right person for plastic surgery.
RS: Have you ever had a bad experience with surgery?
DC: I’ve never had any bad experiences with surgery, but I’ve seen enough, and that’s a big reason I’m so honest about my plastic surgery. I know people are going to do it. I’m an advocate for doing whatever makes you feel good. I also think it’s only fair for me to be open about the doctors I go to, because of the research I’ve done and the results I’ve gotten, and that’s why I even showed the before-and-after of my facelift. People were like, “I wouldn’t put my face on there looking like that,” but the doctors deserve the recognition. I want people to go to the right doctors, and I don’t want to see them get hurt.
As a human, I care enough to make sure people don’t get hurt or they don’t get ripped off. A lot of people save their money for surgery because they want it so badly. They’ll take time off from work and find help for their families while they recover, so it’s a big deal if it’s not right. People always ask why I’m so open—that’s why.
RS: Do you have any other cosmetic procedures that you’d like to do next?
DC: I actually did miraDry a week or two after my tummy tuck. It was more of a hormonal thing than anything else. I’m starting to get hot flashes, and if I’m in a heavy, beaded dress under lights on a red carpet, the last thing I want is sweat marks. MiraDry was an amazing treatment, and it works. You don’t have to wear deodorant after; even though I do because I like to smell nice, I won’t smell if I don’t. I love it.
I was also just on such a roll after my surgery that I went for my mammogram and my gyno appointment. 2020 might suck, but I’m going to do the best I can! I’m going to make it worth it.
