As the sole remaining original cast member on Real Housewives of New Jersey, it’s only natural that the Teresa Giudice we “met” during the first season is a lot different than the lady we are currently watching during Season 8. Aside from that iconic table flip, Teresa has been known for keeping her personal feelings private, slapping on a happy face, and acting like everything is all right even when it very clearly isn’t.
I’m all for this new Teresa. She’s zen when she needs to be, she throws objects to entertain us, and she is finally open about her resentment toward her husband Joe Giudice after her prison stint.
Teresa talked to Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Brandi Glanville in an interview for her Brandi Glanville Unfiltered podcast. On a light note, Teresa shared that a lot of the fans she meets tell her, “You’re so much prettier in person. I get that all the time. I guess that’s a good thing.” I guess it’s better to hear that than to hear the opposite.
At this point everyone knows Teresa is the one who we can thank for getting Danielle Staub back on the show. After all, Real Housewives of New Jersey is essentially The Teresa Show, so it’s not surprising that she has some influence when it comes to the casting decisions.
Teresa shared, “I feel like she didn’t get a fair chance on the show. She was basically bullied.” Brandi concurred and said, “That’s happening on a lot of those shows. Everyone is leaving one person out. It happened to me.” She added, “Obviously it happened to me. I don’t have a job anymore.” And RHOBH has been lacking ever since – minus the stellar addition of Erika Girardi and her alter ego Erika Jayne.
Teresa wasn’t afraid to call out specific names when she discussed Danielle’s exit from the show after Season 2: “I’ll be honest, what happened on our show is, Caroline [Manzo] and Jacqueline [Laurita] refused to work with her.” Brandi responded with, “That’s some bull shit.”
Another casting issue that Teresa had was when she was blindsided by her sister-in-law Melissa Gorga and her cousin Kathy Wakile joining the show in Season 3 without anyone telling her. Obviously we all saw how that played out. Teresa won’t give Kathy the time of day, but she and Melissa are each other’s top allies on the show.
Nevertheless, Teresa admitted, “I didn’t sign up for that.” She added, “That was ugly to me. Caroline, Jacqueline, and Dina [Manzo] started the show together, so that’s something they decided to do together. I didn’t sign up to do this with my family. What happened on the show never really happened before until the show. It was terrible. To live that on the show and to be treated that way and to make my parents go through it and my kids, it was terrible.”
After Brandi commended Teresa for staying at events until every fan there got a photo, Teresa shared, “If they come out to see you, I want to give them the time that they took to come out to see me. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be her.” Exactly. It would be nice if other reality stars adopted this same gratitude.
Brandi called out one Housewife for being less than gracious, saying, “Some Housewives, I’m not saying their names – NeNe [Leakes] – just think their shit doesn’t stink. I just feel like we’re all here doing the same thing just trying to provide for our families.” I’m glad someone else sees it. NeNe is a great Housewife, don’t get me wrong, but she is no better than the rest of them. Well, she is better than a lot of them, but as far as the best of the best Housewives goes, NeNe is in that category with other worthy women.
Moving on to the current RHONJ season, Brandi made it clear that she wasn’t feeling Siggy Flicker. Teresa defended her friend saying, “Well, she knows everyone in Boca. When we went there, it was all her friends there” and “I like crazy people like that. I don’t judge. I laugh at her.” Plus, if it wasn’t for Siggy greeting her friends at the top of her lungs, there would be nothing meme-worthy from the Season 8 premiere episode.
Brandi asked Teresa how things are going with her husband Joe. Teresa said, “We’re good.” She revealed, “We can text. They have texting now.” This is definitely a good thing since Teresa seems to be one of the busiest people on the planet. She shared, “I go visit him when I can. The kids come first, their activities, sports, and work.” Speaking of her kids, Teresa said, “Thank god they’re pretty amazing and they’re standing strong too. They feed off of me. I wake up every morning with a smile on my face and that rubs off on them.”
TELL US – WERE BRANDI AND DANIELLE BULLIED ON THEIR SHOWS? WAS IT UNFAIR WHEN TERESA’S FAMILY WAS CAST ON THE SHOW WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE? DOES NENE THINK HER SHIT DOESN’T STINK?
[Photo Credit: Instagram]
