RHONJ's Danielle Staub Says She's 'Not Interested' in Dating After Split from Her 21st Fiancé
Danielle Staub is single but really not looking to mingle.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star, 57, opened up to PEOPLE about her dating life after her split from fiancé Oliver Maier, revealing that while she’s been asked on many a date since the July breakup, she’s “over dating.”
“I’ve had a lot of offers to date, and have been asked out a lot, but I’m not interested anymore. I’m over dating and over all that. The free time I have, I want to spend it at home with my two daughters, being happy,” she says of daughters Christine, 26, and Jillian, 21.
“Looking back, I’ve realized that I was so focused on making the other person happy in my relationships, I forgot myself,” she adds. “Men have needed me, I haven’t need them. They made or kept their money because they had me, a pretty woman, by their side and they didn’t have to go looking for anything. Guess what happens after that? I ended up with nothing after those relationships. That makes me the one that was used. And I’m done with that.”
RELATED: RHONJ’s Danielle Staub Splits with Oliver Maier, Ending Her 21st Engagement
Staub certainly learned that lesson the hard way, with 21 engagements and three marriages under her belt.
Her last divorce, from husband Marty Caffrey, was finalized back in February. The former couple wed in May 2018 after two years of dating but split less than four months later.
During the long divorce proceedings, Staub met Oliver Maier, a Germany and French businessman who claimed to be the Duke of Provence, with family ties to 15 vineyards in the South of France as well as two castles.
The two got engaged a week after her divorce to Caffrey was finalized, during a tropical getaway to the Cheval Blanc maison in St. Barth. “I’m madly in love,” Staub told PEOPLE about her 21st engagement at the time. “I’m feeling elated and excited for the next stage of my life. I’m going to marry the man of my possible dreams and hopefully I’ll spend the rest of my life in bliss.”
But after postponing their wedding, Staub and Maier quietly went their separate ways.
What went wrong? According to Staub, things fell apart on July 3, when her 14-year-old dog Paradise died.
At the time, Staub claims Maier was just getting out of a long stint in rehab. When Staub asked for his support, he allegedly ghosted her. (Maier did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.)
“I saw him through his problems. For over six months. Stood by his side. And then, in my time of need, he was nowhere to be found,” Staub says. “I was focused on me for the first time in our entire relationship, but because I wasn’t saving him, he didn’t care.”
The two haven’t seen on another since, she says. “He disappeared and went back to Europe,” she says. “July 3 was the last time I saw him, when he came to the house to say goodbye to Paradise. That was it.”
Does she miss him? “Not at all,” Staub says. “Good riddance. Thank you, Jesus!”
These days, in addition to her appearances on season 10 of RHONJ, Staub tells PEOPLE she’s gotten into the real estate business, “doing things that collectively make me feel so important.”
“Guess what? A lot of those ex-fiancés of mine? They’re a lot of the billionaires who own the hotels. So I have the contacts,” Staub jokes.
Ultimately, she says she’s in a great place.
“I’m happy with myself now, for the first time in my life,” Staub says. “I’ve learned a lot, and I want to stay in that space. And I want to lead people to their perfect place of happiness too, ’cause everyone can achieve it. The way people are treating other people is just horrible. They’re not finding a place of peace in their own selves so they can’t find it anybody else, so that tortures them. I go to sleep grateful and wake up grateful. Just be peaceful and people will be drawn to it.”
As for those people who still bring up her relationship past as a means to mock her? Staub laughs them off.
“You know how I got engaged to all 19 of those guys before I met the father of my children? I told them I was a virgin and wouldn’t have sex until I was married,” Staub says. “That will get a man to put on a ring on the finger of a woman who looked like me. I was street smart. I was smart!”
“If I was engaged 21 times and I married the 20th, was it really that bad?” she asks.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Wednesdays (8 p.m. ET) on Bravo.
