For the first time since the story went viral, the “nightmare” nanny broke her silence and was finally telling her side of events on Tuesday morning.
The saga began in March when Diane Stretton, 64, responded to a Craiglist ad and eventually accepted a position with Upland couple Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte to watch the couple’s three children and help around the house in exchange for room and board.
The couple told KTLA that Stretton was amazing at first, but — two weeks into being hired — she revealed that she suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a breathing condition, and things changed shortly after.
“She completely reverted after a couple weeks into someone who didn’t want to do anything and that only came out when it was time to eat,” Ralph Bracamonte said.
Marcella Bracamonte said she delivered an ultimatum to Stretton in the form of a letter, asking her to either live up to her part of the agreement or leave.
The nanny was fired by the couple on June 6, but they claimed Stretton refused to leave and has threatened to sue them for breach of contract, wrongful termination and false imprisonment.
“She said, ‘if you want me to go, you’ll need to evict me. I have rights,’” Marcella Bracamonte said.
The Bracamontes contacted police, but authorities declined to get involved because Stretton had established residency in the home and the dispute was considered a civil matter.
But in an interview that aired exclusively on KTLA provided by photographer Eric Rosenwald, the nanny refuted some of the family’s claims and said she had a two-word name for Marcella Bracamonte: “drama queen.”
“There wasn’t a single day I was there, except for the two days I was sick, that I didn’t do dishes and about two or three hours of cleanup,” Stretton said.
Stretton claimed she was overworked, working as many as 10 hours per day, and that she couldn’t take lunch or coffee breaks.
She added the job she was doing was not the one she had agreed to.
“She [Marcella ] spends 90 percent of her day on the phone , just like a teenager, and she apparently wanted me to do whatever she was doing, which was making me work way more than the equivalent of the value of the room,” Stretton said.
Stretton said that within 12 hours of receiving the letter, her cable, air conditioning and Internet access were cut off.
She also claimed the family tried to feed her dog food.
“Right after she served that letter, she gave the kids three cans of dog food and told them to put it outside my room for my food,” she said. “And so little Ralphie, 4-years-old, knocks on the door and says, ‘Diane, your dinner’s here, we got dog food for you.’”
She also said it was the job that made her sick. Stretton described Marcella Bracamonte as a “drama queen.”
“She gets very hyper and excited and yells and screams. She’s a screaming Mimi,” Stretton said.
She added that she had planned to move out in 30 days, but the situation got complicated.
The ordeal could be over soon, however, as a CNN report stated that Stretton could possibly be out of the house by July 4 as long as certain conditions were met.
KTLA’s Kennedy Ryan contributed to this report.