Is Teresa Giudice's Reign Over?

 

It was bound to happen.  This season’s Real Housewives of New Jersey revisited 10 year old tensions between Teresa Giudice, her brother Joe Gorga and sister-in-law Melissa Gorga.  Although many would argue that they never really did iron out their issus, signs of trouble actually began surfacing a few seasons ago, but now it appears that the gloves are officially off.

 

Melissa recently appeared on a podcast called Mention It All (actually one of the better ones), hosted by Dylan Hafer.  Clearly a fan of Melissa's, Dylan brought up the inevitable (tired) conversation about the Gorga's owing their celebrity to Teresa, and Melissa seized the opportunity to set the record straight, once and for all.

 

Melissa said, “I am not even going to lie; they’ve hit every girl up in New Jersey. I know people loved to say in the beginning, ‘Oh, it’s because of Teresa or you wouldn’t be here.".  She continued, “I mean, do people think that if Teresa wasn’t on the show and Bravo came to interview Joe and I, we wouldn’t have made it onto the show, but all of these other people would have? I just feel like people are so silly when they say shit like that.”.

 

 

Regardless, Melissa is done talking about it.  She tells Dylan, “Of course, she was here first and I get that, but to just keep planting and planting this 'she came on the show behind my back!' thing is just so tiring.  I'm sick of it. and I know the fans are too!".  Melissa raises an interesting point, but I'm not so sure.  Melissa laughed explaining, “No, It’s like forbidden. Everyone at Bravo says to Teresa, ‘You’re not allowed to say that anymore.’ We are so past that. At this point, I’ve been on the show since Season 3 – and in Season 1 they only did six episodes – so I’m not that many episodes behind whatever she has done. It’s insane!”.

 

The Gorgas have certainly come into their own over the last decade, but reality TV is very fast paced with very little time to resonate with the fans, and thinking back, I'm not sure they could have done it without their association to the Giudices.  Besides, RHONJ has always been about "fambly", whether it be the Gorga and/or Wakile connection to the Giudices, or the intertwining Manzo/Lorita story lines. 

 

This comes shortly after Melissa described on her own podcast, On Display, how EVERYONE was affected when Joe and Teresa were "away" serving back to back prison sentences.  Melissa raises a good point; not only were she and Joe there for their nieces physically and emotionally, but through no fault of their own, they (and the entire cast) were all sucked into the situation, some even labeled as guilty by association. 

 

We probably never will know the truth about how the Gorgas joined the show, but at least now, in the court of public opinion, Melissa is winning, and Teresa is coming off as ungrateful, unreasonable, and quite frankly, one hateful bitch.