Although Teresa Giudice has been a mainstay on the Real Housewives of New Jersey since the show’s inception, that doesn’t mean she’s been keeping up with the reality show when she’s not filming.
In a new interview with People, Teresa revealed she only recently started watching RHONJ this past year thanks to the drama with Melissa Gorga and Joe Gorga.
“I’m watching the show for the first time because I never watched it before. And if you pay attention, when I was at the reunions, Andy Cohen would ask me questions and I wouldn’t know what he was talking about.” She added, “Everybody knew I was not watching the show.”
After all the tea spilled this past summer and the new trailer for RHONJ Season 13 dropped, Teresa said, “I just wanted to educate myself and to see what my brother and sister-in-law were saying about me.”
“I’ve been seeing all this on Instagram, these accounts that are posting past episodes. And I’m watching and I’m like, ‘My brother said that? My sister-in-law said that?’ So then I started watching and I’m like, ‘Now, I got my answer,'” she said.
Teresa, Joe, and Melissa will have quite the season this year as they battle against each other in what appears to be their most intense fight yet. Teresa said she couldn’t watch the earlier seasons when they first aired because reliving it was too hard. Now she’s ready to face it head-on.
“But I couldn’t watch it [initially] because it was so hard for me to relive it. And good thing I didn’t watch it back then, because now I’m seeing what my brother and my sister-in-law was saying about me back then, oh my God. It was like a knife right through my heart,” Teresa stated. “I think I would’ve reacted differently if I would’ve watched the show,” she added.
Despite Tre’s declaration that she hasn’t watched the show in the past, that’s not stopping Melissa from voicing her own opinions. She stated recently that Teresa not watching the show “makes zero sense.”
However, thanks to revelations from former producers of the show, we now know Melissa can’t be trusted as she’s lied about how she’s gotten on the show for a decade now. And from how Teresa’s talking, it sounds like she’s still not over it.
“It’s been hard since my family came on [the show],” she revealed. “I never signed up to be on a TV show with my family. This was my thing. I was excited about it. It was something new for me, and it was like my job, and I was excited, and then all of a sudden I get bombarded and ambushed by my family,” Teresa said. “And it was very sad, because I felt like my dream kind of got shattered.”
Teresa said that she “kept the peace” while her parents were alive, and “now I have closure.” The RHONJ OG said she’s “living in my truth” and refuses to “accept this toxicity.” She also vowed to “protect my family.”
RELATED: Luis Ruelas Says That Joe Gorga “Is A Good Human Being” Amid Feud With Teresa Giudice
“I come from a small family and we were really close. And then for something like this to happen, it was really hard for me to deal with,” she explained. “I always tried to keep the peace and that’s why I kept my mouth shut for a lot of years. But now… I’m going to do what’s good for my family, good for me, good for my children. And I just want peace. And that’s why any toxicity, [I have to] keep it out,” Teresa finished.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey returns on February 7, 2022 at 9 p.m. on Bravo, and I CAN’T WAIT. Now that Teresa and Melissa clearly aren’t pretending to like each other any longer, I’m hoping that means Tre is clocked in and will give us fantastic tv. My fingers are crossed.
TELL US – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT TERESA SAYING HER BROTHER AND SISTER HAVE HURT HER BY JOINING THE SHOW? DO YOU THINK THEY WERE WRONG FOR JOINING RHONJ?
[Photo Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo]
