The “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star, 49, told Page Six in a recent interview that she underwent the procedures five weeks ago — when elective surgery was again allowed amid the coronavirus pandemic. The mom of two decided not to tell anyone — aside from a friend who drove her to the surgeon in the Virginia/Maryland area — which made her worry-prone family “hysterical” afterward.

“I kept it from my family because it’s the typical Italian family that gets hysterical over a lot less things, and then they worry, and then it’s this whole big thing,” Catania explained. “I have to get phone calls, my mother’s saying the rosary, she’s lighting candles. It’s crazy!”

“And then I get my kids who are pissed off at me, and then I get [ex-husband] Frank Catania who goes, ‘Oh, you should just work out and then you’ll be fine’ which is just not true,” she continued.

Catania said her boyfriend, Dr. David Principe, “was really really mad.” “Actually he’s still, it’s five weeks now and he’s finally shutting up about it,” she joked.

“One thing I can say is that David was very happy with the way I was built,” she said. “He’s never once criticized me negatively in any way. This was done for myself. So I kept it from everyone until the day I was leaving and it didn’t go over too well. At all.”

Catania joked that Principe thinks her “ass looks smaller” now, which isn’t helping in the commitment department. The couple started dating in 2017 and they made their first red carpet appearance together in 2019. Throughout “RHONJ” Season 10 in 2020, she said that she would not be willing to move in with Principe until there was a ring on her finger.

“He used to say, ‘The ass will get you married,’ but now he’s not saying that anymore,” she told us, laughing.

Still, she spent the first part of her recovery at Principe’s house, which her ex-husband Frank was helping to build on “RHONJ,” so she could be away from her eight dogs.

“It wasn’t easy,” Catania said. “I knew what I was in for. And then I come home and I wake up on David’s couch and my whole family is in his house, in his kitchen cooking. So my brother is making meatball sauce … I have my mother going, ‘Oh my god, what did you do?’ My brother’s cooking for everybody. My nieces and nephews are there. My father’s standing there saying, ‘You didn’t have to do that.’ I mean I know what I’m in for when I come home, but that didn’t stop me.”

Now, Catania is looking forward to her 50th birthday in December. While she’s unsure of how she’ll celebrate due to the coronavirus pandemic, she is focusing on living life “being for me.”