Ellen DeGeneres Audience Groaned When Ray Romano Revealed His Wife’s Financial Situation
Ray Romano is known for ridiculing his family while on talk shows. Sometimes, the jokes hit, while other times, they fall completely flat. The latter of which happened when Romano was on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and his comment about his wife’s financial status went over like a lead balloon.
Thanks to Everybody Loves Raymond, Romano’s cash flow is still going strong years after the show ended. Because of his success, Romano’s family has not had to work unless they wanted to. But this did not stop Romano from making a comment that sounded a bit narcissistic on national television. As such, we will look at why Ellen DeGeneres’ audience groaned when Ray Romano revealed his wife’s financial situation. Then Anna Romano’s history in the entertainment industry will be explored, followed by why Romano’s wife has no interest in fame.
Ray Romano’s Joke About His Wife’s Financial Situation Did Not Go Over Well On The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Romano has always used his family as bits in his work. Be it on Everybody Loves Raymond, where the script was more than loosely based on his home life, during stand-up comedy routines, or even on talk shows, there is no medium where Romano’s family life is off limits.
During a 2009 holiday episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Romano was on the show to discuss Men of a Certain Age.
Per Romano’s normal humor while being interviewed, the discussion with Ellen DeGeneres started off a bit self-depreciating, which was well received by the audience.
When the discussion turned to Romano’s wife, Anna Romano, the conversation started off well enough. The two talked about how long Romano had been married and then started talking about what to get the person who has been a partner for so long for Christmas.
DeGeneres had been married to Portia de Rossi for five years at that point, and she admitted it was already a struggle to come up with a gift for her for the holidays. The talk show host wondered, given the over two decades that Romano and his wife had been together, if it was difficult finding just the right gift, to which Romano had an answer that made the audience groan.
“What do you get a woman who has everything because of you?”
Romano tried to get some support from the few men who were in the audience. But it quickly became clear that he needed to “win back” the crowd and managed to do so with his explanation of what he really does for Anna for the holidays.
“I’ll win you back over, I’ll win you back over,” Romano told the audience. “I don’t buy anything, but I get something better. I give something from the heart.”
Romano explained that it is a tradition for him to put together a 12-month calendar with family pictures. These pictures are not only memories from the previous year but have “funny captions” attached to them as well.
Pictures of the calendar were shown to the audience and the first one was captioned, “Winner and runner up in the ‘Spend Ray’s Money’ competition.” Whether this was intentional or not, it did not play as well as Romano would have liked given his earlier comment about being the one who makes all the money in the family.
Anna Romano Dabbled In The Entertainment Industry
When Anna and Romano met decades ago, they both were working at a bank in Queens. Where Anna excelled at her job, Romano struggled a bit. According to CBS, Anna said that her future husband was “accurate but very slow.”
It was not until after Romano left the bank to pursue a career in stand-up that the two finally dated, and a short time later, got married.
How long Anna worked at the bank after marrying Romano is not clear. But by the time that Romano landed the deal for Everybody Loves Raymond, Anna was home taking care of their kids, daughter, Alexandra, twins boys, Matthew and Gregory, and son, Joseph.
Ray Romano’s Wife Has No Interest In Fame
While Romano thrives on being in the spotlight, Anna has no interest in it. It is because Anna has no interest in fame that Romano credits their lasting relationship. If they were both craving the attention from the public and Anna consistently needed undivided attention from Romano, the two would have broken up long ago.
Romano has called Anna the “hero” in their relationship for allowing him to throw himself into his projects.
“The reason [our marriage] works is because she is a person who (a) doesn’t need attention and (b) can understand how I feel about her, even though it’s hard for me to outwardly express that.”
Despite the fact that Romano is still continuing to be creative and appearing in projects, Anna is completely unaffected. So much so, according to Romano that when he brings a script home or writes a script, Anna supports him but does not have any huge interest in reading it.
