‘RHONJ’ Cast Member Danielle Cabral Once Took Lessons to Lose Her New York Accent
The Real Housewives of New Jersey has two new cast members in season 13, Danielle Cabral and Rachel Fuda, and Cabral once took lessons to shed her New York accent. Here’s why the RHONJ star wanted to lose her accent and where Bravo fans might have seen the reality TV star before.
‘RHONJ’ cast member Danielle Cabral once starred in another reality TV show
Bravo fans know Danielle Cabral as the newest cast member on RHONJ, but the season 13 star is no stranger to television.
According to SI Live, Cabral previously appeared on MTV’s True Life: I’m a Staten Island Girl. The reality show followed three Staten Island girls, including Cabral, who felt they needed to leave their hometown to follow their dreams. The show originally aired in 2006.
‘RHONJ’ star Danielle Cabral took lessons to lose her New York accent
In 2008, Danielle Cabral (then named Danielle DiPietro) returned to MTV for True Life: Resolutions Made and Kept. She opened up about what had changed since viewers saw her on True Life: I’m a Staten Island Girl.
“Everything I wanted to happen, happened,” she told AWE (per SI Live). “It’s a good finish to the storyline.”
Cabral was pursuing a career as an actor, and part of her training was taking lessons to lose her New York accent. But, according to the RHONJ star, casting directors told her to keep it. “Everybody wants the New York girl,” she said.
And Cabral had some success in the entertainment world before Bravo. Under her married name on IMDb, she appeared in the 2014 horror movie The Haunting of Alice D. The IMDb profile for her maiden name, DiPietro, shows she was in the 2008 movie Reality Horror Night and 2010’s Very Normal Activity. She is also credited as a producer on the 2013 short film Existential Surfers and appeared in the 2010 short film Son of a Don. She was also in 2009’s Smoked! The Chaotic Reality.
The Bravo star said she was ‘nervous’ to return to reality shows after MTV
Although Danielle Cabral has been on camera several times, she was “nervous” and “afraid” to appear on RHONJ after her experience with MTV. In March, she told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live that her family was “embarrassed” by her involvement with True Life: I’m a Staten Island Girl.
“I got a lot of heat for that show. A ton,” Cabral said (via Bravo), adding that her Staten Island neighbors also disapproved of her appearance on the MTV show. “Yeah, they were not happy about it. Even during filming, it was very hard. They were not nice. They weren’t nice, so I was very nervous going into this [RHONJ] of all things.”
She explained why people criticized her for doing the MTV show. “It wasn’t so much of what I did, it was the kind of rep we gave Staten Island,” she said. “Because it was before Jersey Shore, it was before shows came out, and people were like, ‘Oh my god, Staten Island, who are these people?!’ And they had a problem with it.”
But she told Cohen that so far, she has enjoyed her time on RHONJ and was “surprised” by “how real everything is” on the Bravo show. “It was a lot to take in,” Cabral said.
