Maria Bartiromo is a popular finance reporter who has worked for CNN and CNBC television. She was the first reporter to broadcast live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, has won a slew of journalism awards and is in the Cable Hall of Fame. She’s also someone who Joey Ramone had a heavy crush on. Joey invested in the stock market and was an avid fan of Bartiromo’s and watched her TV appearances religiously.

Joey used to email Bartiromo to ask for stock tips, as she told The Guardian in 2006:

“I started getting emails from him and he would say Maria, what do you think about Intel or what do you think about AOL and I thought who is this person emailing me? It’s crazy, he’s calling himself Joey Ramone. Sure enough it was him and we developed this friendship. And he was attuned to the markets. He really understood his own investment portfolio. Joey Ramone was a fantastic investor.”

He even wrote and recorded an ode to his money muse “Maria Bartiromo” which appeared on his solo album Don’t Worry About Me released posthumously in 2002.

“What’s happening on Wall Street
What’s happening at the stock exchange
I want to know
What’s happening on Squawk Box
What’s happening with my stocks
I want to know
I watch you on the TV every single day
Those eyes make everything OK
I watch her every day
I watch her every night
She’s really out of sight
Maria Bartiromo
Maria Bartiromo
Maria Bartiromo”

 
“He said to me Maria, I wrote a song about you and he said just come down to CBGBs in Manhattan, be there at midnight. I said, Joey, I’m sorry to tell you but I have to be on the air at 6am and I can’t be anywhere at midnight except in my bed, so I didn’t go.” She did, however, send a camera crew. “Sure enough, the cameraman came back with the tape and there’s him and his band with this song Maria Bartiromo and I just love it. It’s a tremendous tribute. I just love that. It’s great, just great.”

In this clip Bartiromo reflects on her friendship with Joey and what it was like to be honored in song by a Ramone.