Moving on. Dolores Catania and David Principe have split since viewers last saw them on The Real Housewives of New Jersey — but their time together will still be explored throughout season 12.
“We haven’t really spoken. I know what I signed up for and when something in your life changes, it’s only fair to everyone to share it with them, you know?” Dolores, 51, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, January 27, about preparing to watch the end of their romance on screen. “And I’ve always been very honest with everything — from plastic surgery to my relationship with [my ex-husband] Frank and my relationship with the girls.”
The Bravo personality noted that it was “really hard” to go through a breakup while in the middle of filming because she isn’t “an outwardly emotional person” in her day-to-day life.
“I internalize things. I go off in a room, I hide alone until I’m over it. It’s only recently that I’ve shared my feelings with girlfriends,” she added. “This is new to me in the past seven years of being on the show. That’s something that’s changed about me is being a girl’s girl.”
Dolores also reflected on how things between her and David have changed since filming wrapped, saying, “[It was] time to move on and it was not for any reason. I’m sure he has nothing bad to say about me. I have nothing bad to say about him, but it was just time.”
After they begun dating in 2017, the philanthropist’s relationship with David was a major topic of conversation on RHONJ, with Dolores’ costars often wondering whether there was an engagement in their future. In December 2021, however, a source revealed to Us that the duo “broke up this past summer” because they were going in different directions.
“There was no bad blood between them,” the insider explained at the time, adding that RHONJ star didn’t care about being proposed to while they were together. “She gave her all but didn’t get the same from David. He was non-existent in her social life and rarely made appearances at events with her. They just had different lives and weren’t able to make it work. She wasn’t happy in the inside and for a while she hid her true feelings from friends.”
Dolores, who shares daughter Gabrielle, 26, and son Frankie, 23, with ex-husband Frank Catania, has since moved on with boyfriend Paul Connell.
“I’m very, very happy. I don’t want to say too much about it because it’s new and you don’t know what is going to happen,” she shared with Us on Thursday. “That’s another thing that’s hard for me, wanting to feel, like, normal and posting a picture and just having fun. I’m getting shy. All I can say is [that] I’m very happy.”
The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 12 premieres on Bravo Tuesday, February 1, at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi