And now….

As of June 2013, the Gorgas’ home is on the market for 3.8 million dollars. Melissa says she wants to move back to Franklin Lakes and does not want her children to go to school with Teresa’s, eventually. In reality the facts seem to state otherwise. This is a home Melissa says was built for her and the family so why move? Joe installed a state of the art recording studio in the basement so why would you leave that? They have an enormous mortgage to pay with high interest rate, Montville has very high taxes as the rest of Northern Jersey has and the amount of land they own equals very, very high taxes, and the financial burden could be lifted with selling the house. Joe Gorga’s work has slowed down I imagine since joining the show. First, the show takes up a really big chunk of time, as Alex McCord says on one of her housewives videos she makes. It’s hard to have a real job when you’re on the housewives. He accompanies Melissa all over the country for appearances—she rarely goes alone. The business he was in—home improvement—like Giudice has taken a big hit and slowed down considerably. I heard that his business website says he doesn’t build houses  but rather buildings things like ponds and does landscaping. They receive many things gratis, as many of the housewives and their families do. The fancy cars they drive are rumored to be provided by a company that wants the Gorgas to drive the cars to promote their business.

Rumors have said that the Gorgas are selling their home because they can’t afford it. Joe Giudice said at the season 4 reunion that Joe Gorga has to borrow money from people every week. Joe’s reaction looked like he was speechless. When the Gorgas put their home on the market, they also had their shore house for sale. Melissa said that they put their shore house up for sale every off-season because they would take a good offer on it. Some people looked into it and found that they had their house listed in the summer time as well. It is currently not for sale while their Montville home is still for sale.

There have been stories about Jacqueline. Chris’s company had to file bankruptcy leading him to put all of his energy and money into BLK water along with his nephews, Albie and Christopher. Albie has stated that they do not receive a paycheck from BLK water but instead pour all of their profits back into the company. Does Chris Laurita do the same? Is he making as much money as when he had the company? If you are interested in Signature Apparel bankruptcy and the consequentially lawsuit by the trustees of the company against the Lauritas (Jacqueline was named in the suit) I encourage you to research it on your own. In a nutshell it seems that they are accused of misusing profits and funds but I’m not one to speak of legal mumbo-jumbo. It’s readily available on the web. Jacqueline’s home has been in the news too as a rumor swirled that it was in pre-foreclosure for missing a mortgage payment. She has also been accused of not paying her taxes. She stated on Twitter that she was not rich but not poor either and that autism treatments for her son were expensive. She was able to fly out to California for a tummy tuck however. Perhaps this was done gratis and it might be featured on season 5 of the show.

Season 5 aka Image Rehabilitation

In my opinion, all of the women tried to take Teresa down last season in hopes of making the viewers all turn on her and resulting in her being booted from the show. They didn’t expect the enormous amount of support she received. There are still many, many Teresa haters out there, but a lot of people see through the charade and supported Teresa throughout the season and didn’t believe that she was in control of the set up at the P.F.S. I think they all expected to expose Teresa as this completely evil person and leave themselves shining like stars in the process. Notice that no one fought with each other—they only fought with Teresa. Was this premeditated? It seems to be the way New Jersey goes. Has Caroline ever had more than 1 enemy at a time? First Danielle and now Teresa. Does she always need a target?

What happened is not what they were hoping for. Many viewers saw Caroline as a bully and while I don’t think bully is the right word, I agree with the idea behind it. She was just mean and ridiculous in my opinion. There’s only one thing Teresa did (besides everything I previously wrote about that would make Caroline jealous and resentful) to warrant the behavior that Caroline showed towards her one time friend. To me, I think Caroline just grew to dislike Teresa over time. After being on the show together for a  few years, Teresa fell out of Caroline’s favor. Season 1 she could laugh at her. Then season 2 she shows signs of being increasingly annoyed with her (ie their trip to Italy), season 3 shows her rope shortening and shortening culminating with the cookbook remarks which sent her over the edge and finally season 4 when she loses it. The one thing is Dina. However, Dina herself, as well as Melissa have said that Teresa and Dina weren’t close until recently (while taping season 4). Caroline could not have been mad at Teresa the previous seasons because the two weren’t speaking until after the ambush on Jacqueline’s deck. I think that while Caroline is mad at Teresa for what she sees as further driving the wedge between she and her sister, she is just jealous. Jealous that Teresa has any semblance of a relationship with the sister she was once so close with. Caroline refuses to accept any responsibility for it. Dina wanted her sister to stick up for her and threaten to leave the show when Dina was fired but Caroline didn’t do anything. Neither did Teresa. But somehow, Teresa becomes Caroline’s target and scapegoat in all of this once again.

The rehabbed image will show Caroline becoming the peace maker of the show. Maybe she will sell some more of her advice book which had dismal sales upon its release.

My Jacqueline Laurita Theory

Could Jacqueline have taken an anti-Teresa stance because of Melissa? It was rumored and brought up on the reunion that Jacqueline and Chris Laurita did not meet at a trade show in Chicago as they have said. All speculation: It’s been said that Chris met Jacqueline as a stripper in Las Vegas. It’s also been said that he was engaged to be married to a close friend of Dina’s when he met Jacqueline. It’s been rumored that Chris broke it off with his fiancée when Jacqueline got pregnant with CJ and they had a shot-gun wedding following that. They did in fact have a very informal wedding in which Jacqueline wore pants and a shirt and it was held in a park. Should the stripper rumors be true, maybe Jacqueline feels some sympathy for Melissa with the way she and Joe might have met. Maybe they share a bond over being strippers in a past life and trying to pretend as if it never happened. Jacqueline has stated over and over again that Teresa is jealous and hates her sister-in-law. Much like the relationship she has with Dina? Dina reportedly hated Jacqueline because she adored Chris’s fiancée before Jacqueline came into the picture. The two had a kind of shaky relationship in the first season that resulted in Jacqueline defending her friend, Danielle over her sister-in-law Dina. It became apparent that the two may not like each other as much as they let on. Maybe Jacqueline sees these similarities of herself and Dina with Teresa and Melissa and can sympathize more with Melissa in situation. Jacqueline is the Melissa of her family and they could have possibly bonded over it. Now they are both accused of living above their means with both facing financial issues of some kind.

So could that be would Jacqueline try to blow the whistle on Teresa at the P.F.S.? When she found out that Teresa was behind exposing Melissa’s secret past that was similar to Jacqueline’s, she wanted to protect Melissa’s image much in the same way she hoped someone would protect hers. Allegedly, Caroline and her family have known about Jacqueline’s stripper past for years and Caroline used to tell Teresa about it. This is what Teresa basically said on the season 4 reunion. Danielle Staub called Jacqueline some name that alluded to her being a Vegas stripper and has stated many times over on Twitter that Jacqueline was a dancer but she asked Danielle not to talk about it on camera and Danielle obliged. On the season 4 reunion Joe Giudice said that Chris told him that he met Jacqueline as a stripper in Vegas. Chris corrected him and said that they met at a trade show in Chicago. In my opinion, this seems like the most over-rehearsed story that I have ever heard. I have never seen proof that they met either way (or seen proof of much of anything for this whole story) so who knows. All I do know is even the allegations against both Melissa and Jacqueline could result in a bond and a common disdain for Teresa for being a part of the stripper-gate incident.

Jacqueline said many times over after the fight at her house that she wanted a relationship with Teresa that was real. She felt like Teresa was being fake and that their once great friendship had turned into something that was not genuine. Teresa seemed very upset and stunned after Jacqueline attacked her and told her that she needed to distance herself from her and her family. Jacqueline said she was upset too but she saw Teresa doing one thing and then saying another and that she was fake. She felt hurt that Teresa never talked to her about her own children and life and was further hurt because Jacqueline was worrying herself sick over Teresa and the things she would read in the magazines. Chris Laurita even said that the Giudices were basically ungrateful because Chris was the one who offered to buy all of their furniture when it went up for Sherriff’s sale (which never happened). None of this adds up for me and it seems that the Lauritas are trying to paint themselves as saints who care so much about their friends who don’t give a crap about them. When in reality, if you know your friend is going through so much, why poor on the guilt? Not everyone is the same and we all deal with problems differently. Teresa had a lot on her plate and the way she dealt with it was to pretend it wasn’t happening and she didn’t want to get into it much with her friends. Why couldn’t Jacqueline understand that? Why did she have to be selfish and personalize it? It wasn’t about her, but she made it that way.

Jacqueline has quite a big issue with Teresa’s legal and financial issues as well. She has Direct Messaged and responded to many people on twitter about it (as well as informing fans that Joe Giudice has had many trysts…) and when Teresa said it was the same thing as her financial problems at the reunion, Jacqueline tried to make it very clear that her husband’s business’ bankruptcy was nothing like Giudices’. She tried her best to make the Giudices look like frauds and bad people when in fact what she and her husband and his brother and wife are accused of doing by the trustees for the Signature Apparel lawsuit is just as dirty–if it is true. I think Jacqueline is the master of deflection and loves that she is able to take the attention away from herself and put Teresa on the spot instead.

Backtracking to season 4

It’s so difficult to keep seasons 3 and 4 in order and I think that was done purposely. Producers knew that they had strike while the iron was hot to get season 4 going the way they wanted to be so they could capitalize on the success season 3 was already having. I didn’t think a season 5 was even possible with all of the same women after these seasons but I was wrong!

Season 4 starts with everyone basically getting along. Caroline is still perturbed at Teresa for the cookbook comment. Teresa apologizes and tries to explain the joke but Caroline refuses to accept her apology, saying that it’s insincere. It’s another season of everyone angry about Teresa’s success except now she has even more magazine covers and even more business opportunities happening around her plus Celebrity Apprentice. Now there are even more reasons for everyone to loathe Teresa Giudice. And this will be the focus of this season. They really hone in on the magazine covers this season and will nail her to the wall for it. But there are few articles about the other women, it’s mostly about her own life. So why do they care? Jacqueline and Caroline confront Teresa about it.

During the confrontation on Jacqueline’s deck, she says she is concerned because she doesn’t know what is real and what is fake regarding Teresa’s life. Common sense might tell Jacqueline that if Teresa is doing the covers to make money, then maybe it is because she needs the money. What is more, if Jacqueline was a true friend and really concerned wouldn’t she try to have this conversation off camera? Instead the conversation ends with Jacqueline telling Teresa she is going to distance herself from Teresa and her family. Over what? Because she thinks Teresa’s life is a lie and she can’t decipher what is real and what is fake? Some might say that is more of a reason to be there for your friend, because there is so much going on, obviously. Teresa did not want to admit to any problems on a camera. Teresa and her lawyers seemed to carefully craft what they would air about their ongoing legal issues on camera and she was probably advised to stay quiet about it unless otherwise instructed. This is probably why the lawyers agreed to give Bravo the one scene of Joe and Teresa at their lawyer’s office. They were able to discuss their issues in a controlled setting. If Jacqueline was a good friend, wouldn’t she understand that? Instead she continues to point out that Teresa is willing to film at her lawyers office but wouldn’t talk to her own friend about it? Meanwhile, if this was indeed Teresa/lawyers’ rationale, they were right as Jacqueline has made public seemingly every detail she knew about the Giudice’s legal issues. Does this seem like a supportive friend or a jealous friend? Jacqueline has said that Teresa has stolen business opportunities from her. I think she is referring to either the teeth whitening system Teresa was promoting or the Milania hair care line. I really think THIS is the reason that Jacqueline has is out for Teresa. Lord knows that Jacqueline allegedly needs the money now…

Throughout season 4 digs are made constantly at Teresa. Rich Wakile says that uninvited all of his children’s friends to their family pool party just because Teresa would be there. He calls a “loser”, throws her cookbook in the trash and blames her for all of the family’s problems. After making constant mean-spirited remarks toward Teresa, she is expected to take it and only say nice things about everyone else. While on vacation in California, Kathy brings up a magazine article in which Teresa says that “everyone” makes fun of her for shopping too much. She clarifies and says that she meant just Rich. Caroline asks Kathy if that makes it less hurtful. Kathy answers that it does not because he was clearly joking. This is one example of the double standard that exists between Teresa and everyone else.

Another double standard

Dina and Teresa vs Caroline and Kathy and Melissa. Caroline says the fact that Teresa is close with Dina is very hurtful. After the confrontation on Jacqueline’s deck, Teresa went to her friend Dina’s house. By Dina’s own admission, she and Teresa had somewhat fallen out of touch because Dina wanted nothing to do with the show or anyone from the show following her departure. But when her friend Teresa showed up at her door, she was there for her as she was crying and very hurt by the attack made against her. Teresa invited Dina to her launch party of Fabellini which was filmed AFTER the Posche fashion show. Dina wanted to go after the cameras were gone but got roped into filming anyway. Dina said on Twitter that there was heavy editing involved and that most of their conversation was about Teresa’s relationship with her brother because this was filmed after they had their falling out as a result of the Posche fashion show. Caroline says this is hurtful because all she had tried to do all season was help Teresa mend her relationships with Kathy and Melissa.

Caroline must not be remembering correctly. A few examples of helping are below:

*On the California trip, she tells Kathy that she does not see enough movement from Teresa toward her. She only sees movement toward Melissa and Joe. How does that help?

*She decides to reveal the things that Teresa has said about Melissa behind her back. The same thing that Jacqueline and Caroline thought was wrong of Teresa to do when she told them what Dina had said about them… Jacqueline was vocal about how that was not the right thing to do.

*Caroline bashes Teresa in front of Kathy and Melissa all season. She calls her a “disgrace” amongst other things.

*At the reunions, she reveals things that Teresa has said about her family. She says how she told Caroline that she didn’t want to make up with her brother and that she hated him. Nothing brings families back together like hearing things like that.

When it is convenient for Caroline, she says she has helped, but if you pay attention she did nothing but further drive the wedge between Teresa and her family.

The California trip shows Teresa getting along and trying to get along with everyone. Caroline refuses to be friendly with Teresa. She allows her children to bash her. Lauren calls her a piece of sh*t and Caroline says nothing. She wants others to bash her, it seems. Jacqueline wants to make up with Teresa because they have a long history and have been friends for a long time. Caroline says as sure as she that her name is Caroline Manzo that Jacqueline will wind up hurt. Why can’t Caroline root for Jacqueline to be friends again with Teresa if that’s what she wants? If it will make her happy, let her be and don’t predict and bad ending. This is what Caroline wants and hopes will happen.

Jacqueline and Teresa make up on the trip. Jacqueline notes that Teresa was really nice on the trip and they have sincere moment where they make up. At the reunion, Jacqueline reveals that she heard Teresa bad-mouthing her later on the trip to Melissa in the RV. Melissa agrees with Jacqueline’s point. If this is true, why didn’t they discuss it on the show?

Jacqueline says that she was disappointed that she didn’t hear from Teresa when they got back from California. If she heard Teresa talking about her poorly as she later states, then why would she be disappointed? This is a person who supposedly just bad-mouthed you and you are mad at for it, so why would you be upset about it? Also, why can’t you call her, Jacqueline?

Jacqueline says that she is also disappointed that she wasn’t invited to the Fabellini party when in fact that was filmed after the Posche fashion show and the two women had just had a major falling out. Jacqueline and/or the producers of the show will use any excuse they can to make Teresa look bad. But in Jacqueline’s case unfortunately, a lot of it doesn’t add up for me.

Also, Jacqueline tells her father that Teresa isn’t there for her and that she never asked about her daughter Ashley except for the one time on camera. Later, Teresa says that Jacqueline asked her not to talk about Nicholas’s possible disorder because they did not have a proper diagnosis/treatment plan in place and they didn’t want to reveal it on camera until they knew for sure what was going on. Teresa obliged and never said a word. How can we be sure that Teresa was really not there for Jacqueline with both Ashley and Nicholas after she acknowledged that she had in fact asked Teresa not to talk about one of her children on camera. It is possible that Teresa felt like Jacqueline didn’t want to talk about it—MAYBE just like Teresa didn’t want to talk about her legal/financial issues? Hmmmm. Food for thought. Either way, Jacqueline loves it because she is able to paint Teresa as a bad friend for it.

The Posche Fashion Show

This was the season finale for season 4. Season 4 and season 3 collided as the 4^th season was filmed as the previous one aired. We’ll never really know how all of the women were feeling about each other at the end of season 3 because the reunion for seasons 3 and 4 were both after they had finished filming all together. The only reason to assume season 3 ended on a good note is because they were all able to do press together to promote season 3 while the same could not be said for season 4. Teresa was noticeably absent from group interviews.

Kim D had beef with Melissa and Joe Gorga prior to filming. It was rumored that the party planner they hired for their Season 3 holiday party, Fabulous Fred was never paid by the Gorgas. Kim D had something to do with the story not becoming public but was saying that Joe was a bad business man, or something. They had beef is the thing. Kim D invites the woman to her “house” who she dislikes for this set up. Everyone knew about the set up and this is a story within itself. I think, Teresa was not clued in and was set up the most. It has been alleged that the producers were texting Jacqueline and Caroline telling them that Teresa was setting up Melissa, which is why Jacqueline is unable to reveal who told her that. Coincidently, the network decided to change producers for season 5. It has been suspected that the production company was fired but it was made to look like the producers had moved on to other projects.

I could go on and on about the fashion show. To me, the bottom line is this: Jacqueline got word from *someone* that Teresa had been involved in trying to set Melissa up to expose her alleged stripper past. All of the other women took Jacqueline’s word for it and jumped on the bandwagon because it was the perfect way to take Teresa down. Teresa seemed confused and nervous the whole time. After Jacqueline told Joey Gorga about the text she received regarding Teresa’s involvement, Teresa felt that someone had set this thing up to make Teresa look bad. Bingo? I personally never understood the “set up.” Some guy who we don’t know/care about claims he worked with Melissa when she was a dancer. Do we take his word for it? Does anyone believe him? Could Teresa really be capable of planning such a scheme? To me, Teresa was the one who was truly set up. Because in the end, Melissa came out smelling like roses. She looked like the victim as her mean sister-in-law tried to expose lies about her. Although Teresa has on many instances brought up rumors about Melissa on camera (that she was a gold digger, would leave her husband for someone richer, rumors that she was a stripper) would she go through all of this to bring in an outside guy to hurt her sister-in-law? You be the judge.

All of the women besides Teresa sure got what they wanted out of the stripper-gate, interestingly enough. For two seasons, they have been envious and angry at Teresa Giudice and have been seemingly pulling things out of the air to hate her for. With the “set up” they were finally were able to pin this enormous incident to Teresa and paint her to be the evil person that they want to show her as. This season Melissa will hold onto it as her main source of ammo, I’m sure. The reality of the situation is, that even if Teresa was clued in, it seems Caroline and Jacqueline were as well as a plethora of others. Why does Teresa become the only scapegoat? Answer: Because they want her to be.

Season 3 is when it all changes

Teresa said that when Melissa first came into the family she welcomed her with open arms. I am sure that there was some sense of loss and/or jealousy when Joe went from being a real family man to spending much of his time with Melissa and her family. You cans see from the first episode of Season 3 how much Gia adores her uncle Joe. It sounds to me like he was the uncle of the year before he got married and had his own children. Even though we all want the best for our loved ones, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t difficult to deal with the changes. When Melissa gave birth to Antonia, Joe expected Teresa to return the favor and be a stellar aunt as he was an uncle. But he didn’t consider that Teresa was already a busy mom and pregnant with her third child. This is when Joe’s feelings started to get hurt and in turn Teresa’s. He is already thinking that Teresa is all about herself and her family because she can’t make time for his family as he did for hers previously. Then, she gets casted on a TV show and doesn’t include him or his family in it either? This just adds to the hurt he’s feeling. Then he and his wife are cast on the show with all of these underlying feelings and hurt so they take the opportunity to nail her to the cross over it.

Melissa is smarter and more conniving than Teresa in my opinion. Where Teresa might show a lack of tact or say things that are stupid and hurt feelings like repeating rumors she hears about her sister-in-law, Melissa thinks about how she can make Teresa look bad. She tries to convince viewers and her fellow cast members that Teresa is a bad person in any way she can. When Teresa does something wrong, she turns it into a federal case. Teresa coming to congratulate them on the Christening becomes a big, bad deal because Melissa uses it as an opportunity to show viewers how fake Teresa is. There are instances like this littered over two seasons of the show. Savvy viewers see it. Ones that believe Melissa without examining the facts further (most of the viewers, I think) see Teresa as the bad one.

Teresa says that Melissa and Kathy came on the show without her knowing. They say that she knew. Whatever the case, it seems no one was prepared for how the first day of filming season 3 all together would go. It was Joey Gorga’s Christening and Teresa knew how to act for the cameras. She decides that she needs to congratulate her brother and Melissa on camera at the reception. This sends Joey into a fit of rage in which he calls his sister “garbage” in front of his niece and Teresa’s daughter, Gia. He violently slams the table and as Joe Giudice comes to talk to him, Joe Gorga charges at him and all hell breaks loose.

In one scene of that first episode, Joe Gorga cries to his father. It is revealed they have a strained relationship which Joe attributes to Joe Giudice. Melissa says that Giudice is always in father Gorga’s ear saying that Joey (Gorga) works too much and isn’t there for him. She says that he is working to pay the bills… Anyway. The elder Gorgas never approved that much of Melissa. As old-school Italians, they probably just don’t understand her. They have no frame of reference on how to deal without an “outsider” from their world since their daughter married a man who is 100% Italian. Giudice grew up in the same town as them, and the Gorgas were great friends with Giudices since they all emigrated from the same town in Italy. An Italian-American like Melissa probably wasn’t what someone like Italian-speaking parents had in mind for their only son. The reality is that Mr. Gorga spends a lot more time with Giudice because the families are both close-knit. They are not close with Melissa’s family who lives down the shore and don’t share their customs or history. Because Melissa is so close with her family, Joe probably spent more time with them than his own family.

Because this is the mentality that the Gorgas most likely have, it was probably inbred in Teresa to have that same view. They only know what they know, and since there is a language barrier, they are probably aren’t used to being so close with those (like Melissa) who aren’t like them. Teresa’s feelings probably reflect the way she was raised and the way her parents treat the situation since she is so close with them. It is normal. The Marco clan are very different and probably view Teresa and her parents as being rude and cold to Melissa, but they don’t understand the cultural differences that exist. This could explain the sprinkle cookie incident in which Melissa brought the wrong kind of cookies to the party. Because Melissa is not from a family like the Gorgas/Giudices, she may not know their customs. Teresa says her mother in law commented on the cookies and to appease her, Teresa told Melissa not to bring them again. As for throwing them in the garbage, that is just rude, Teresa! I would have eaten them!

Teresa is hurt that her family came on the show and knows they will be airing the family’s dirty laundry. I think Teresa is already having a difficult time with all of her legal and financial issues all while trying to put on a happy face. I think the last thing she wants to do is film this show with her brother, his wife and her cousin. As she is just trying to get through it, the rest of the cast is still experiencing their many frustrations with Teresa as I previously discussed. No one is happy that Teresa is the star and they may see her cutting other people down along the way to get what she wants; through the magazine sales, etc. In my opinion, it is Teresa’s form of survival but no one else cares to see it that way because they are jealous of her success while simultaneously angry about her lack of explanation and humility regarding her financial and legal problems.

In the wake of finding out Melissa and Kathy would be joining the show, Teresa probably said some bad things about them to her friends, Caroline and Jacqueline. When you are hurt, this is what you do. It seems completely plausible. Later in the season, Caroline and Jacqueline will make known what Teresa has said, making her look like such a horrible person. Sometimes, people name-call those we care about when we feel that they hurt us. It is normal to confide things like this in a friend when you are angry. Teresa didn’t know that the things she said to her friends would later be ammunition against her to further portray her as a villain.

Caroline and Jacqueline go for a crazy ride on Season 3 as the story is less about them and now about Teresa and her family. Maybe this caused them to be angry at Teresa as well. They have to get involved in their relationships in order to stay relevant on the show and not become mere side stories. From their vantage points, they see Teresa being angry and remaining angry at Melissa and Kathy for coming on the show. Meanwhile, they feel bad for the two women as Teresa continues to treat them poorly. The see the two women making efforts to become friends with them while Teresa continues to discourage it because of how they hurt her. To me, it seems that they find every possible excuse to build a case against Teresa.

The entire season we see negative things said about Teresa. Rich Wakile calls her a loser, her brother calls her a b***h and garbage, Melissa makes a jab about how they don’t pay their bills, the Manzo kids mock her cookbook, say she’s jealous of Melissa, say that she and her husband speak in third grade words. Caroline says being around Teresa gives her a headache. All the while, Teresa seems to be out of the loop as it’s all done behind her back.

Melissa and Joe Gorga: A back story.

There are a lot of rumors out there as to how the two met. They themselves, seem to have a few different riffs on the same story but the way they would like us to remember it is that Joe first laid eyes on his wife in Mexico on Spring Break. They later saw each other again at a club and they spent every night together since then. There are tons of rumors about Melissa’s past and how they “really” met. Joe might have known her as a dancer/bartender at Lookers, the strip club/bikini bar she worked at.

Joe Gorga was young and getting started in business. He had owned his own trash removal company, as far as I know but with the help of his brother-in-law, Joe Giudice got set up working the housing market. The housing market was booming and he decided to strike while the iron was hot. He bought a few rental properties in Patterson, NJ as well as nice house for himself in Franklin Lakes, NJ. This is the house he was living in when he met Melissa. Rumors say that she was living with another boyfriend at the time but when she saw his giant house and learned of the money he was making, she decided to move forward with their relationship. She quickly moved in and they became engaged soon after. Joe had already been engaged a few times and was now on the fast track to marriage. Melissa had previously had a breast augmentation and her new in-laws weren’t quite fond of her look, rumors say. They had seen their son with a few other fiancées already and weren’t sure what to make of Melissa. People who knew her then described her as a plain Jane of sorts, not the fabulous character she portrays herself as now.

The couple got married and took advantage of the hot market by putting Joe’s house up for sale. The moved into a rental property in Kileon, NJ while Joe took the 1 million dollars he profited from the sale of the house and purchased the lot of the current home in Montville, NJ. He secured a construction loan of around 2 million dollars to build a spec house on the land he purchased. With almost all of their cash tied up in this project, this was probably the time that the Gorgas recall on the show when they say they were so strapped for money, they could barely afford diapers. Joe had income with his rental properties but it is possible money might have been tight at this time.

When the construction on the house was completed, Joe Gorga put the home on the market for around 4 million dollars. However, at that same time, Bravo was a-knocking at their door. The relationship the Gorgas had with the Giudices was not the best at the time but the show as a sure-fire way to make some money and make Melissa into the star that she and Joe always thought that she could be. As they sat back and watched Teresa on TV for the past few years and watched her flourishing career take off, they became jealous, I’m sure. As they were experiencing some financial hardship of their own, they were angry Teresa never tried to include them in any filmed events or try to get them on the show so they could reap the same benefits the Giudices were getting. On top of all of that, they, along with Teresa’s cousin, Kathy and her husband Rich Wakile, were feeling the same frustrations that the Manzos and Lauritas were experiencing about their on-screen easy-going attitudes versus the real legal and financial turmoil they had in real life but refused to discuss in public (or private for all we know.) This would lead to the eventual bond that the old cast members and their families would share with the new ones: the Gorgas and the Wakiles. When you have 2 families thrown together that share little in common, you need to find common ground wherever you can and they all found it in their disdain for the Giudices.

Luckily or unluckily for the Gorgas, Joe tried to sell the home for way more than it was worth right when the housing market bottomed out and he was unable to sell it for the price he wanted. So to give off the appearance of having money, the Gorgas pulled the spec home off the market, moved out of their rental home and into the mansion Joe built. At first it was great as they got to live there on a construction loan, which means they don’t have to pay taxes! But eventually it would catch up with them. They had a balloon payment that was about 2 million dollars that they had to pay but they were able to change the construction loan over to a mortgage. A high one at that. So when Melissa says on the first episode that Joe surprised her with plans for her dream home, was that a lie? It may have been one of the first of many.

Why would Melissa even want to join the show? According to her, Teresa has been “torturing” her for the past 8 years. If someone is really making your life that miserable, would you want to put yourself in situations where you are forced to have constant interaction?  Either way, Melissa is in the wrong here in my opinion. If things haven’t been that bad, then why lie about it? It seems they had their share of little issues like the sprinkle cookie debacle and the housewarming cards, but we have never heard about anything life shatteringly big as viewers. Melissa had that one Facebook post in which she said Teresa refers to herself as a celebrity and seemed annoyed by it. If things are that bad, why join the show that the sister-in-law who tortures you and you cannot stand is on?

The beginning of a whirlwind of malice

Teresa Giudice joins the new reality show in 2009 along with her friends, Jacqueline Laurita and Dina Manzo. Jacqueline’s friend Danielle Staub joins, as well as Dina’s sister, Caroline. For the first two years of the show, Danielle is the focus and source of any problems. All of the other cast members get along for the most part (except for Dina and Jacqueline, but this is minor in the grand scheme of things but results in a still shaky relationship) but by the end of the show, no one likes or wants to play with Danielle. The producers, I think drop a tell-all book about Danielle’s life into the Manzos’ hands that exposes her past for a national audience. Instead of maybe bringing up the concerns with Danielle secretly to find out the truth, the Manzos and Teresa decide to tell the world about it, probably as the producers instructed them to do. The finale comes with Teresa flipping a table over the allegations made about Danielle and fighting and confusion over who really exposed the book. Dina is mad at Jacqueline for throwing her under the bus and then having a drink with Danielle following the dinner.

The next season, Dina exits the show early, after only a few episodes. She explains that she is leaving because of the Danielle drama but it is now largely known that Dina was basically forced to leave. It was discovered and I think Danielle is the one who made it known, that Dina’s ex-husband and father of her daughter, Lexi did not OK their child appearing on the show. Dina might have forged his signature and Danielle may have exposed this. This was the underlying tension between the two and Dina couldn’t stand that Danielle was winning this one and basically was able to get Dina fired from the show. Dina didn’t receive the support she thought she would get from her family and friends on the show. Already at odds with Jacqueline, she only felt more betrayed now. She was mad that Caroline and Teresa didn’t fight hard enough for her to stay on the show either. This is the source of why Dina isn’t speaking to her sister and sister-in-law now. Teresa continued to support Dina in various ventures but the two had drifted apart as a result of the show’s events.

Season 2 was much like season 1 following Dina’s departure                                                                                    

The Posche fashion show was one of the only times that the women filmed with Danielle. Teresa accosted her, as per production’s request. What is the point of doing a show if none of the women will talk to each other? This lead to 19 year old Ashley Holmes, Jacqueline’s daughter, becoming involved. Apparently, Danielle’s antics (which now looking back…what did she really do?) were too much for young Ashley to handle and she resorted to pulling Danielle’s hair because she was so sick of Danielle and heard that she had hit her mother, which was not true. This all culminated in the police being called and an eventual lawsuit from Danielle against Ashley. The rest of the cast went to Italy with their families and this is when Caroline is starting to become perturbed by Teresa. Teresa and her husband, Joe had filed for bankruptcy when they became 11 million dollars in debt.

This same season, Joe Giudice was pulled over and got a DUI. As Teresa’s life became harder, it seemed Caroline just got more and more annoyed by it. She will say later that things just didn’t add up. Regardless, the financial trouble sent Teresa to work and on her way to becoming a New York Times’ bestselling author with her first book, Skinny Italian. What were the rest of the women doing? Jacqueline: nothing. Caroline: nothing. Danielle: nothing. Teresa went on a book tour and was on her way to becoming a success. Season 3 would see the release of her second cookbook, Fabulicious and in season 4 an adult beverage, Fabellini. Teresa was also cast to be on the Celebrity Apprentice while her co-stars continued to take no opportunities to have successful ventures like Teresa did.

All the meanwhile, Teresa is appearing on cover after cover of magazines. Some stories in the tabloids were aimed at her fellow housewives but they were mostly about her life and not positive stories for the most part. When filming season 4 began, Caroline, Jacqueline and their families used the tabloid stories to air their own frustrations out on Teresa. I mean, how could the women who can barely formulate a sentence become the runaway star of this franchise? How could she be the one who is writing cookbooks, touring the country and is plastered all over the magazines as you wait in line at the grocery store? After all, she is in massive debt and had to agree to pay back all of the money instead of going through with the bankruptcy. This is not someone who deserves this, right? And look at her, while all of these things are happening behind the scenes, later including her husband’s DUI case and later, a still on-going case against him involving him fraudulently obtaining a driver’s license by posing as his brother, Teresa is acting like nothing is wrong when filming and is continuing to achieve success with her cookbook and is going far on the Apprentice. To Caroline and Jacqueline, this is mind blowing. How could someone who has so many problems continue to put on a happy face and ignore the issues in front of the cameras?

This the mentality as season 3 begins. Caroline, Jacqueline and their families are frustrated with Teresa for these reasons. When the 3 of them began the show together, it was all of them against Danielle. They stood united. But now, there was a clear runaway star and it didn’t include them. Teresa was taking every opportunity she could to make money so they could pay their debts. The mortgage bubble collapse and recession hit her family hard as her husband is in the home improvement industry and steady work was hard for him to find. We still do not know what the real story is with Teresa getting paid to appear in the tabloids, but if she was given the opportunity to make some money by answering questions and getting a picture taken, could you not blame her for taking it? When you are that much in debt because of your own financial missteps, have 4 young daughters and a house to take care of, and have hefty lawyer fees because of your husband’s legal issues, your moral compass may not be swinging perfectly straight. The Manzos and Lauritas at that time are frustrated with this situation immensely and do not take this into consideration, or at least don’t care to.

What a great time for Teresa’s brother, his wife and her first cousin to join the show! Bravo isn’t stupid and saw that Teresa was taking off. The show had previously focused on three family members: Dina, Caroline and Jacqueline but with Dina (and Danielle) gone, Jacqueline and Caroline weren’t enough. The producers added Melissa Gorga, who was basically a younger, hotter version of Teresa who lead an over-the-top life and had a sexy relationship with her husband. When we first met Teresa, she told viewers that she and her husband have sex every day, paid cash for tens of thousands of dollars worth of furniture to outfit their new mansion. Melissa seemed to check all of the boxes that Teresa had once checked. But now, Teresa wasn’t first season Teresa anymore. She was now a sort of business woman and amounted a great number of legal problems. She wasn’t the easy-breezy Jersey girl she once was. Luckily, her sister-in-law was waiting in the wings to take her place.

Melissa Gorga first appeared on the Real Housewives of New Jersey on the season 2 reunion show. Trying to attack Teresa, Danielle said that Teresa did not acknowledge her nephew or visit him at the hospital when he was born. This sent Teresa into a fiery rage worse than the table flip.  She pushed Andy Cohen off of her as he tried to restrain her and told Danielle “do not break/bring up my family!” It was later revealed that the nephew Danielle was referring to was baby Joey, Melissa’s son. Teresa did in fact visit him when he was born,  but her husband did not. Melissa admitted on Season 4 that she was corresponding with Danielle about Teresa. Melissa said she was pregnant and annoyed with Teresa. Danielle claims that they had much more correspondence than Melissa has lead on, although she has never shown any proof of it despite claiming to have saved phone records, texts, etc. She further claimed Melissa tried to get on the show during season 2 and asked to film with Danielle. It has also been rumored that Melissa and her husband sent a “Godfather” like video to the Bravo producers in which they said that should they be casted, they would “take Teresa down.”

New Jersey: A Rumored and Opinionated History

Disclaimer: This is the story of the Real Housewives of New Jersey as I see it and honestly, as I imagine it. This is just one BIG fan of the show’s written accord of what I think has happened on the show and behind the scenes currently and in the past. This should not be interpreted or understood as fact as it is for entertainment purposes only. Littered throughout this timeline are my own personal opinions, theories and interpretations of events, people, and places. This text is not cited because this is a collection of things that I am pulling off the top of my head: these are NOT facts. These are things I remember reading, have learned and many of these things are theories I have made and conclusions that I have drawn myself. I encourage you to draw your own conclusions off of your own research for the areas that interest you instead of forming your opinions based off of what I have written.

I have read blogs about the show and watched the show since its inception. There has been so much written about it, that for my own purposes I have decided to outline the show’s history as well as some history of the cast members and their families and have included my own conclusions and theories along the way so I can keep track of my own thoughts. Please read this and enjoy but do not cite this in any other blog or article as it not factual.

This has not been authorized by Bravo, anyone involved with Bravo, the show, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, the cast members, production crew or Comcast and NBC, Bravo’s parent company. I have not spoken or interacted with the aforementioned companies and people either. I have not discusses this with any other blog but I encourage you to read some great ones that have detailed and citable information. I have learned a lot from these blogs and a lot of things in this story can be attributed to them. I thank them for the inspiration to do this and for the information I have learned from them along the way. Please check them all out.

Famewhorgas.wordpress.com
Stoopidhousewives.com
Tamaratattles.com
AllaboutTRH.com
Fauxrealityentertainment.com