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Teresa Giudice will open up about her and ex-husband Joe Giudice’s fraud investigation and her 2015 incarceration during the new season of Bravo‘s The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th, she revealed in conversation with The Hollywood Reporter
While sitting down with her UltimateGirls Trip castmates for THR‘s cover story on the 20-year anniversary of the Real Housewives franchise, Giudice explained why she opted to continue filming The Real Housewives of New Jerseymore than a decade ago when she and then-husband Joe were under investigation for a multi-year financial fraud scheme that ultimately sent Teresa to federal prison for 11 months and deported Joe after his 41-month sentence
“I’m always a mom first. I always want to protect my children over anything,” the iconic Housewife and mother of four daughters explained to THR editor-in-chief Maer Roshan in theinterview published Tuesday. “At first I was like, ‘Let’s do this,’ because I really didn’t understand what my ex-husband had done. I wanted to go to trial and fight it and go through whatever we had to do. I was like, ‘I guess because I’m on TV, let’s just go through the process.’”
She continued, “I really never in a million years thought I would go to jail. If you said to me, ‘I’ll give you $40 million right now, are you going to go to jail?’ I’d be like, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I thought I just had to go through the process and then everything would be fine.”
Season six of RHONJ, which aired in 2014, captured up-close-and-personal the legal timeline andfallout for the Giudice family following their July 2013 federal indictment for bankruptcy, mail, wire and bank fraud. The Giudices entered their plea deal in March 2014 and filming paused while Teresa served her sentence. The cameras picked back up on the morning of her release to start off season seven. Joe was deported to Italy after his sentence, leaving the country in 2019, and that played out on season 10. Teresa and Joe then divorced in 2020.
“Being a celebrity made me go to jail. They made an example,” Giudice told THR. “I know I didn’t do anything. I know I wasn’t a criminal. I went to a closing. That’s all I did. I went to a refinance for a home for a closing. That’s what I did.”
She continued, “I went to a closing. I put my John Hancock on that dotted line, and I went to jail because of that. That’s the reason why. My story will never change
“Listen, New Jersey’s a small town, meaning everybody knows everybody,” she said. “Everyone knew I had nothing to do with my husband’s business, nothing at all. I was a housewife. I stayed home, watched the kids. I cooked. I did laundry. I was a real housewife. It had nothing to do with my husband’s finances. And that’s why I thought it was a joke. I was like, ‘Because I’m on TV, I have to go through this.’ But I was like, ‘I’m not going to go to jail. I didn’t do anything.’”
Giudice said she goes into detail about this time period on Ultimate Girls Trip with her fellow Housewives stars, which includes the cross-city legacy cast of Kyle Richards, Vicki Gunvalson, Luann de Lesseps, Porsha Williams, Gizelle Bryant and Lisa Barlow. The nine-episode milestone season launches this Sunday (with a supersized episode at 9 p.m.; streaming next day on Peacock)
Teresa Giudice has since remarried Luis “Louie” Ruelas and will return for season 15 of RHONJ, which is currently in production after a two-year hiatus andGiudice-Gorga family strife. Also during her conversation with THR, Giudice confirmed she and her estranged sister-in-law/co-star Melissa Gorga have reconciled; they’re both returning for season 15. Giudice has starred on RHONJ since the start of its 14-season run
“I would never want to be on a TV show with my family, but it happened. We fought on the show for a while,” Giudice said, also about her brother co-star Joe Gorga. “A lot of people could relate to what they were seeing me go through. But now I’m so happy to say that we have made up. I’m happy about that.”
The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th celebrates 20 years of the iconic Real Housewives franchise by gathering the seven established stars to lead the latest season of the girls trip-inspired series. They travel to six Housewives cities and welcome a whopping 82 all-star appearancesonto the show from the franchise
Read or watchTHR‘s full cover story conversation with the starring Housewiveshere
