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The life of Mary Jo Buttafuoco changed dramatically when she was shot in the head on her front porch by her husband’s teenage mistress, 17-year-old Amy Fisher, who became infamously known as the “Long Island Lolita.”
Now, nearly 34 years after that harrowing incident, Mary Jo, the suburban mother at the heart of this scandal, is sharing her journey in a new Lifetime biopic titled “I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco.” The film features Chloe Lanier portraying her younger self.
“I’ve reached the peak of my recovery,” said Buttafuoco, who is now 70 and a grandmother, during an interview with Fox News Digital. “The effects of the shooting still linger. Unlike other injuries, bullet wounds don’t just heal. A leg can be set, and a scraped knee mends, but a bullet leaves lasting harm.”
Mary Jo Buttafuoco, who survived the attack by Amy Fisher, is now narrating her story in the biopic “I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco,” offering a raw insight into her life. (Dick Yarwood/Newsday RM via Getty Images; Dennis Caruso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
“I live with permanent injuries that won’t ever heal,” she explained. “I’ve lost hearing in my right ear, suffer from facial paralysis, and have issues with my esophagus. With only one carotid artery, I also face ongoing vascular challenges for the remainder of my life.”
“I’ve always said this bullet will get me eventually,” she reflected. “But I’ve been very blessed that it’s let me hang on this long.”
Mary Jo Buttafuoco points to her bullet wound at her lawyer’s office. (Dennis Caruso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
The morning of May 19, 1992, started like any other Tuesday, she recalled. After sending her two children off to school, the Massapequa, New York, mother — then 37 — was preparing to paint in the backyard when a knock at the door changed everything.
WATCH: MARY JO BUTTAFUOCO TELLS ALL ABOUT THE AMY FISHER SCANDAL
Fisher, then a high school student, arrived holding a Complete Auto Body T-shirt from the shop where Buttafuoco’s husband, auto body mechanic Joey Buttafuoco, worked. Introducing herself as “Anne Marie,” Fisher claimed to be 19 and said the shirt was proof that the 36-year-old man was having a sexual relationship with her 16-year-old sister.
As Buttafuoco turned to call Joey, Fisher pulled out a .25-caliber handgun, fired a single shot and fled.
Amy Fisher, 17, from Merrick, Long Island, is arrested for the attempted murder of Mary Jo Buttafuoco. (Paul DeMaria/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
“In the blink of an eye, the life I had ended when she came to my door,” Buttafuoco said. “I was nearly murdered in front of my own house — my safe place.”
This undated photo shows Mary Jo Buttafuoco and her daughter Jessica outside their home after the shooting. (Bill Turnbull/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Buttafuoco miraculously survived the attack. After eight hours of emergency surgery, doctors determined the bullet was too dangerous to remove. It had broken her jaw, traveled deep into her skull and lodged at the base of her brain, just above her spinal column.
Once she regained consciousness, Buttafuoco gave police a description of her attacker, though her husband vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
Joey Buttafuoco stands on the steps of his home in Massapequa, New York, on Sept. 25, 1992. (Marianne Barcellona/Getty Images)
Detectives arrested Fisher two days later — on May 21, 1992. After confronting her with phone records, witness descriptions and inconsistencies in her story, Fisher eventually confessed.
Amy Fisher’s mugshot. (Kypros/Getty Images)
The case quickly became a national media circus that dominated headlines for months.
“It was awful,” said Buttafuoco. “They made fun of me on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ One of the actresses had her face all distorted — that was supposed to be funny. I thought, ‘My God, I look like this because I got shot. I was almost murdered.’
Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco outside their Long Island home. (John Roca/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
“It became a joke. Maybe because I stood up, walked and talked, people thought, ‘Oh, she’s OK. Everything’s fine.’ But it wasn’t fine. It was mortifying. The name ‘Buttafuoco’ got dragged through the mud. It became a punchline.”
Chloe Lanier stars as Mary Jo Buttafuoco in Lifetime’s “I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco.” (Lifetime)
Fisher pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison. She served seven years before being released in 1999.
Buttafuoco remained with Joey for seven years after the shooting.
Amy Fisher sits in Nassau County Court in Mineola, New York. (Dick Yarwood/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
“First of all, I almost died,” she explained. “I was in no shape to say, ‘Get out.’ I was very sick for a long time. I had two little kids who were traumatized that their mom was almost murdered outside their home. And Joey lied easily and smoothly. He swore on the lives of our children that he had nothing sexual to do with Amy — that she was just a customer who misunderstood him. He had his story, and he stuck to it. And I believed him.”
Mary Jo Buttafuoco stayed married to Joey Buttafuoco for seven years after the shooting. (Getty Images)
“I was on a lot of medication — a lot of pills that altered my thinking,” she admitted.
Looking back, Buttafuoco said she has wondered whether she suffered from symptoms of Stockholm syndrome.
Joey Buttafuoco stands near some of the bullet holes in the front window of his family’s auto body shop in Baldwin, New York, on June 24, 1994. The Complete Auto Body Shop was hit by about 30 bullets, police said. (Dick Yarwood/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
“I have been with Joey since I was 17,” she said. “Before I got shot, I’d been with him for 20 years. I realize now that he was a good talker — a schmoozer. He was personable, and everybody liked Joey in the neighborhood. He was everyone’s friend, with this over-the-top personality people were drawn to.”
Mary Jo Buttafuoco grew up with Joey Buttafuoco. They were married from 1977 to 2003. (Marianne Barcellona/Getty Images)
“Whenever I asked, ‘Why did this girl shoot me?’ he’d say, ‘She must have thought that because I was nice to her and fixed her car, she could have me. She must have misunderstood me.’ That’s what he would tell me — and it made sense at the time.”
“He was such a good liar,” Buttafuoco continued. “I would ask him a hundred times why. He never flinched — he’d just look at me and say, ‘I don’t know why she did this.’ He was my captor, and I listened to him. I believed him.”
Mary Jo Buttafuoco entered the Betty Ford Center to address her addiction to prescription drugs. (Rick Maiman/Sygma via Getty Images)
Buttafuoco turned to prescription medication to numb her pain and quiet her thoughts. Privately, she struggled with depression. She knew she needed help.
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Mary Jo Buttafuoco and her husband, Joey, are seen here heading to court. Date unknown. Buttafuoco told Fox News Digital that she was privately struggling with depression and an addiction to painkillers. (Rick Maiman/Sygma via Getty Images)
“There wasn’t an aha moment,” she said. “I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Time was passing, and I wanted to set an example for my children — that mom can go through this, and it’ll be OK. They never saw me wiped out or drugged out. But I took pills to maintain, just to exist. They thought mom was fine, but when they’d go off to school or with friends, I would collapse in my room. I never wanted them to see me like that.”
“I became an addict,” Buttafuoco continued. “Back then, they gave me every pill I asked for. Nobody says no to a woman with a bullet in her head who says, ‘I’m in pain.’ They were handing that stuff out like candy — and I took it.”
Amy Fisher was released from prison in 1999. (Willie Anderson/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Buttafuoco entered the Betty Ford Center for addiction treatment, a decision she said “saved my life.” She later filed for divorce in 2003.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco filed for divorce in 2003. (James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images)
“I remember they said, ‘Mary Jo, this terrible thing happened to you, and it’s awful, but you have so much anger and hate inside you. It’s not allowing you to heal.’ They opened my eyes. When I got sober, I realized I couldn’t stay in this anymore. I had to move on.”
Fisher, now 51, pursued a brief career in adult entertainment before leaving the industry in 2011, according to People magazine.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco’s case was the subject of several films over the years, including the 1993 made-for-TV movie “The Amy Fisher Story” starring Drew Barrymore. (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
After Fisher’s conviction, Joey was indicted on multiple counts of statutory rape, sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child, People reported. He initially pleaded not guilty but later admitted to having sex with Fisher when she was 16. He served four months in jail.
Amy Fisher attends Exxxotica New York on Sept. 25, 2009, in Edison, New Jersey. (Joe Kohen/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to Fisher and Joey, 69, for comment.
“What I’ve learned over the years is that Amy Fisher is a narcissist — and narcissists don’t change,” Buttafuoco said. “It’s always been about her. She doesn’t care one iota about what she’s done. It’s also inexcusable for any adult man to take advantage of a teenager. In that sense, she was a victim, but it doesn’t excuse what she did afterward.”
Today, Mary Jo Buttafuoco lives with her daughter in California. (JB Lacroix/WireImage/Getty Images)
Today, Buttafuoco lives in California with her daughter and remains close to her son. After extensive facial reconstruction surgery, she can smile again.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco, second left, with the cast of “I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco.” (Lifetime)
“My head is half hollow,” she said. “If you’ve ever been on Novocaine, that’s what it feels like every day. I have no feeling on the right side of my face, but I’ve adapted to it. I made it. I’m a survivor — and I’m proud of myself for that.”
Lifetime’s “I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco” is available for streaming
