Teresa Giudice opened up about the legal drama that landed her in prison for 11 months on Kelly Ripa‘s podcast on Wednesday.
While also looking back on her suspicions about Joe Giudice‘s possible infidelity, admitting that trying to get Joe, 52, citizenship in the U.S. was “so complicated,” and revealing that her late father, Giacinto Gorga didn’t like The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa, 52, said she felt targeted by the government due to her reality television fame.
“Joe had a partner and Joe’s partner ratted me out,” Teresa explained on the July 31 episode of Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa.
According to Teresa, Joe wanted to use her credit to purchase a property. And, because he had done so well in the past, she didn’t hesitate to allow him to do so.
“I went to a lawyer’s office … Listen, Joe always did really well. I didn’t work the first seven years of our marriage and I bought whatever I wanted when I wanted, went shopping every day. We lived well. [I] was not concerned. Then 10 years later, I get on [RHONJ]. And before I did the housewives, I asked Joe, ‘Is everything good? Anything I have to worry about?’“ she recalled.
Although Joe assured her that everything was fine, she later received a visit from the government.
“[Joe] and his partner had a falling out so the government came knocking on our door and is like, ‘Your husband hasn’t filed taxes.’ And his partner said I signed one of the homes and his partner never did any time. He ratted me out, meaning he told the government, ’Teresa signed a property,’” Teresa explained. “I never in a million years thought that I would go away. I was like, ‘I didn’t do anything. I just signed one property.’ [Even] Joe said … ’They want you more than they want me.’ He saw that — that they wanted me because I was on TV.”
While Joe wasn’t always a fan favorite on RHONJ, Teresa applauded her ex-husband as a good father and insisted he “always treated [her] well.”
“He just snapped on TV,” she noted, signaling his infamous scene in Napa, during which he called Teresa his “c*nt wife” on a phone call.
“I definitely think he was talking to a girl,” she admitted of the moment. “[But] if I would’ve saw that he was cheating on me, if I would’ve had proof, I would’ve totally left him. I don’t like cheating. That’s not my thing.”
During their marriage, Teresa said she tried to help Joe become a legal citizen.
“We could’ve did it. I did try for him once but it was so complicated,” she shared. “It was too much paperwork and I couldn’t figure it out. We should’ve hired an attorney. We just didn’t do that. It was stupid on both of our parts.”
When Teresa ultimately began her prison stint in 2015, Joe began drinking heavily out of guilt.
“[He] would cry every day, my kids would say, and then he would drink a bottle of wine at night and Gia would find him, he would fall asleep on the table drinking a bottle of wine because he was so upset I was [in prison],” she revealed. “The girls saw how much pain he was in. And I know, I know in my heart he didn’t mean to hurt me. I totally forgave him.”
In addition to forgiving Joe for his legal missteps, Teresa has maintained a friendship with her former spouse, even spending New Year’s Eve with him and his girlfriend, and her husband, Luis Ruelas, 50, in the Bahamas, where Joe now resides.
“He had his girlfriend there. We all hung out and it was totally fine. We had a great time,” she shared.
Also on the podcast, Teresa said that her father didn’t like the show and wouldn’t tune in.
“My father never watched the show. My father didn’t like the show because he knew [Melissa Gorga] and my brother [Joe Gorga] came on the show behind my back,” she explained. “[But] my mom watched every episode and I know she suffered inside.”
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