Allure Meets Big Ang of Mob Wives
by Patrick Rogers
Blink and you'll miss the Drunken Monkey, the modest storefront bar on Staten Island owned by Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, the star of VH1's Mob Wives. But you will never, ever miss Big Ang. On a Friday night, Allure contributing editor at large Joan Kron and I are having a drink at the bar when the TV personality walks through the door, smelling sweetly of Laura Mercier Crème Brûlée body lotion. The place lights up: Fans are there from California and Florida, and a pair from Sweden have arrived to propose a modeling job. "They're from everywhere," says Ang, who clearly loves her public. Italy, Australia, the U.K.--a group from Saudi Arabia even showed up once with bodyguards. "It's nice," she says, "but sometimes they jump on me when I come in. That's a bit much."
We get the impression Ang can handle it. She orders herself an espresso martini (there's a painting on the wall of her spilling one) and gamely sits down to discuss the elements of her singular style. Naturally, we start with the lips, which seem always on the verge of swallowing the rest of her face. They took shape 14 years ago, Ang tells us, when a doctor injected her with what she calls "collagen and plastic," and they have never since required so much as a touch-up. "I paid $3,500, and I'm done," she says.
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Ang swears she doesn't have time for makeup: "I only wear nude lipstick, Chanel or my own Bling Collection, left over from when I owned a salon" (it "drowned" during Hurricane Sandy, she says), plus some bronzer, eyeliner, and a dollop of pigment to darken the beauty spot above her lip. Tonight, she has on black leather from head to toe--including leather Converse hightops and a leather baseball cap--and a contrasting white blouse that shows off her pumped-up assets with a bang. Her diamond-stud earrings are 2.5 carats ("I sleep with them," she says); her eyelash extensions are mink; and the bright teal polish of her gel manicure was chosen not by her, but by her five-year-old grandson Salvatore. We ask, already suspecting the answer, whether she wears sunscreen. "Never," she answers. "I'm Italian." She has the word "omerta" tattooed on her back. That's Italian, too, although we forget what it means, and Ang isn't telling.
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Ang says she's always on the move, and we believe it. Earlier in the week, she shot footage for the next season of Mob Wives, showing off her new granddaughters, Angelina Rose, who arrived on April 1, and Annabella Patience, born four days earlier. Before that, Ang and her husband, Neil, had a short winter break in Florida, which gave us a reason to ask how she possibly squeezes her outrageous figure into a bathing suit. "Carla Marino [who also appears on the show] makes my suits for me," Ang replies, whipping out her cell phone to show us a picture taken by a paparazzo on the beach in Miami. "Some fans tweeted a picture of me and my husband at the Fountainbleau, and the paparazzi found us--they recognized the building." In the picture, the ocean is Tiffany blue, Big Ang is smiling broadly, and this Carla Marino, whoever she is, deserves an award for engineering.
For more about Big Ang's outrageous aesthetic, read "Overdone" by Joan Kron in the April issue of Allure, on newsstands now.
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