They were household names: Amy Fisher. Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Joey Buttafuoco.
On May 19, 1992, Mary Jo was shot in the head on the front porch of her home in Massapequa, N.Y. The shooter: 17-year-old Fisher, a high school student who was having an affair with Mary Jo's husband, Joey.
Miraculously, Mary Jo survived the attack. As the media swarmed their quiet neighborhood, all three members of the lovers' triangle became nationally known personalities. Fisher was dubbed the "Long Island Lolita." With his tough-talking exterior, Joey was known as the villain. And Mary Jo was considered the innocent housewife caught up in her husband's infidelities.
The case would later become the subject of a 2016 episode of Scandal Made Me Famous on the Reelz Network. On the episode, Mary Jo recalls the attack — and explains her journey since the shooting. The show also offered updates on the lives of the three people involved in one of the most sordid scandals of the '90s.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco
Mary Jo moved on with her life following the scandal. She divorced her husband in 2003 and shied away from the spotlight — except for the occasional TV appearance.
In 2010, Mary Jo released the book Getting It Through My Thick Skull: Why I Stayed, What I Learned, and What Millions of People Involved with Sociopaths Need to Know.
She continued to grapple with her injuries, suffering from partial paralysis on one side of her face and deafness in one ear. Because surgery would have been too dangerous, the bullet remained lodged in her neck.
"It wasn't an assault," she said of Fisher's plea deal. "It was an assassination."
Mary Jo revealed she underwent surgery in September 2017 to repair her partially paralyzed face.
"It's the first time in 25 years that when I smile, I can see the side of my teeth," she told Inside Edition of the results of her facelift and nerve-repair surgery.
Despite the improvement on her face, Mary Jo continues to raise awareness and funds to cure facial paralysis.
As for Fisher, Mary Jo referred to her in an interview with Dr. Oz as "kind of a waste."
"She's in her 40s now," Buttafuoco said in November 2017 on Dr. Oz's eponymous daytime talk show before its end in January 2022. "She hasn't made good choices ... that's her decision. I wish she hadn't. I forgave her. I forgave her more for me because, again, like I said, when you got this anger and this bitterness, you have to say, 'You know what, I can't keep you in my head anymore.'"
Amy Fisher
Fisher was originally charged with first-degree attempted murder, but she later pleaded guilty to assault. After spending seven years in jail, Fisher was released in 1999. That same year, she apologized to Mary Jo in court, saying, "What happened to you, it wasn't your husband's fault … it was my fault, and I'm sorry."
Since her release, Fisher married Louis Bellera in 2003 and had three children (However, the couple divorced in 2015.) Her 2004 memoir, If I Knew Then, details her past experiences. Fisher also worked briefly as a columnist for the Long Island Press.
In 2007, after a sex tape emerged, Fisher began a brief career in adult entertainment. She starred in her own pay-per-view adult film, Amy Fisher: Totally Nude & Exposed, and made a handful of other adult movies. She walked away from the industry in 2011.
Fisher has occasionally spoken out about the Buttafuocos, even calling Mary Jo "a nonentity" during a 2008 interview with Chaunce Hayden for Steppin' Out magazine, as reported by Fox News.
"People are angry at me because I'm a millionaire," she continued. "But guess what? So is Mary Jo! She made more millions off of what I did than what I made."
Joey Buttafuoco
After Fisher's assault conviction, Joey was indicted on 19 counts of statutory rape, sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child. Although he initially pleaded not guilty, he later admitted to having sex with Fisher when she was just 16 and knowing her age at the time. Joey spent four months in jail.
He remarried after his 2003 split from Mary Jo and appeared in about a dozen movies and on TV shows, including Celebrity Boxing, Judge Janine Pirro and Judge Alex.
Scandal Made Me Famous combines reenactments, exclusive interviews and never-before-seen photos and video depicting the story of infamous crimes. The show was hosted by PEOPLE Senior Writer Steve Helling.
The Fisher episode is available to stream on Tubi and Prime Video.
