A woman says she no longer blames her father after his 17 year-old mistress shot her mother in the back of the head for dumping her.
Jessie Buttafuoco, 38, The Doctors hosts Dr Andrew Ordon and Doctor Dominick Sportelli that letting anger towards her disgraced father Joey build up over his affair with then 17-year-old Amy Fisher serves no useful purpose.
The podcaster’s mother Mary Jo was shot in the head by Fisher, dubbed the Long Island Lolita, in 1992. It triggered one of the most infamous crime scandals of that decade, but Jessie now says she’s let go of the anger she held on to.
‘Blaming people doesn’t necessarily help,’ she told the host of The Doctors. ‘I’m still left with all those feelings so I’ve learned to accept my situation as I go. Placing blame has never serviced me or my mental health.’
38-year-old podcaster Jessie Buttafuoco (pictured) appeared on The Doctors and said she does not blame her father Joey after his mistress shot her mother in the back of the head
Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco (pictured) stayed together after he cheated on her with a 17 year-old girl, and later went to prison. Mary Jo filed for divorce in 2003 and has since remarried
Amy Fisher, (pictured) known as the ‘Long Island Lolita’ was sentenced to seven years in prison for shooting Mary Jo, and was released in 1999
Jessie was just nine-years-old when her family hit the headlines for the infamous ‘Long Island Lolita’ case.
Fisher – her fathers’ underage mistress – turned up at her family’s home in Massapequa, Long Island after Buttafuoco dumped her and shot Mary Jo in the back of the head with a .25-caliber automatic handgun.
She did so after revealing the affair to Mary Jo, who refused to believe what the teenager was telling her.
The carotid artery in Mary Jo’s brain was severed, and she suffered permanent facial paralysis.
After a sensational trial, Fisher was sentenced to seven years in prison and released in 1999.
Meanwhile, Jessie’s dad father Joey was also convicted over the case, serving four months of a six month jail sentence for statutory rape.
He was freed in 1994, with the family subsequently moving to California.
Jessie’s parents stayed together after her father returned from prison until her mother filed for divorce in 2003 and has since remarried.
17-year-old Amy Fisher (pictured at a Long Island in court in 1992)was at the center of the infamous ‘Long Island Lolita’ case
Following the trial, the 38-year-old told The Doctors her life ‘became a reality show’ and that ‘the whole world hated my family.’
She said she was once asked if she was her father’s latest teenage girlfriend while riding in a convertible with him.
Jessie was also humiliated when she applied for New York University’s theater program as a teenager, when one interviewer asked: ‘Are you related to that clown Joey Buttafuoco?’
She was forced to admit she was.
Jessie recalled how she’d once gone to watch a recording of Saturday Night Live – only to see her idol Madonna blast her notorious father.
She said: ‘I’m actually in the Saturday Night Live audience because Madonna was going to be the musical guest and then all of a sudden she holds up a picture of my dad and says “fight the enemy,” I’m 10 feet away from her.’
Seven years ago, Buttafuoco began struggling with eating disorders.
She also began drinking heavily, as well as relying on diet pills and Adderall for her attention deficit disorder to try and dull the pain of her horrific childhood, the New York Post reported.
After contemplating suicide, Jessie checked herself into an intensive outpatient substance abuse program.
Since then she has been able to turn her life around, studying psychology at Pepperdine University and hosting the advice podcast, “Live Your Life KWEEN,” the Post reported.
Mary Jo is now a motivational speaker while her father Joey is working on a movie about his early life as of 2019.
Fisher enjoyed brief notoriety as a porn star, and is now a divorced mother of three who still lives on Long Island.
When asked on The Doctors if she blames her father Joey for her substance abuse issues, she says there is no point in dwelling in negative emotions.
‘I could blame a lot of people in this situation,’ she told The Doctors. ‘I can blame my dad, I can blame Amy, I can blame the New York Police Department for the lack of justice.
‘I can blame society as a whole for turning my name into what it was but I found that placing blame doesn’t do anything but ignite and fuel those feelings of anger and sadness and vengefulness and all those swirling negative feelings.’
