Heartbreaking. Mob Wives star Angela “Big Ang” Raiola is in the fight of her life as she battles stage IV cancer, but she’s facing it without the love and support of her husband, Neil Murphy.
The reality personality revealed in an emotional interview on The Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday, February 16, that she has split with Murphy.
“I felt like he never stepped up to the plate, so I was done with it,” she told Dr. Mehmet Oz. “Now, it’s too late, bye, I would rather be by myself.”
“I been taking care of everything since I been married to him. I don’t need it,” she continued. “So, I’d rather be alone. And I’ve, that’s what I did.”
But Raiola, who was married to Murphy, 43, for six years, has her two kids, six grandchildren and her sister, Janine Detore, around to offer love and support.
“We’re a very tight family,” she said. “If my family wasn’t here to support me through all this, I don’t think I could do it.”
Raiola said she was stunned when she was diagnosed with cancer last year. “One day I was perfectly fine, thinking I had strep throat, the next thing I know I have stage II throat cancer,” she recalled.
After two surgeries to remove the cancer, Raiola believed she was in the clear.
“It’s shocking what happened,” she said. “First I thought I was cancer-free and I was gonna have a big celebration, have a party, and then a month later I [had] stage IV” lung and brain cancer.
She revealed that she has good days and bad, and has battled with depression since she learned in December that the cancer had spread.
“Sometimes I think I’m going to be fine,” she said, “and sometimes I don’t think I am.”
Earlier this month, Raiola’s sister set up a Go Fund Me page to raise money for the reality star’s medical bills and to pay for cannabis oil to help ease her pain.
“The amount of pain she is having is by far more than she could handle,” Detore wrote on the page. “This is why I am putting up this go fund me to try to help my sister to get this oil to help her at least be pain free. Angela cannot function to work anymore. I’m not sure that it will work but I’m praying.”
