Teresa Giudice‘s daughter Milania Giudice went “through a glow-up” in front of the cameras after The Real Housewives of New Jersey premiered in 2009.
Milania, now 17, opened up about her childhood weight loss on a recent episode of her mom’s “Namaste Bitches” podcast, joking about her “weird era” in middle school. “I was way thicker … I was a pumpkin,” she said. “One day, it hit me. I was like, ‘That’s it.’ I really felt, like, suffocated in my own body.”
The teenager recalled asking her mom, 51, to help her find a nutritionist to work with. “And she did, and I ate three meals a day — they were literally the healthiest meals, like, I would never eat those meals that I ate,” she said, noting that she also implemented a strict exercise routine. “I woke up before school and I worked out [for] 30 minutes … and then after school, I would work out again.”
Milania claimed that she “lost 50 pounds” within the span of two months, but Teresa was skeptical. “I weighed so much. My heaviest was like 150, and then when I was done, I was like 110,” Milania said. “I was so skinny after that, like, I was literally like a stick … but I felt good. And then I gained it back.”
When asked what prompted her weight loss, Milania said that her mom would drop some not-so-subtle hints about her size. “She would never say anything [bad] to me, but she’d be like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna have another ice cream?” she recalled. “I’d be like, ‘I don’t care if I’m fat If I’m fat. … If I’m gonna have another ice cream, I’m gonna have another ice cream!'”
Teresa added that she never tried to “force” her daughter to slim down or develop “a complex” about her body. “I thought she looked adorable, she was just a little thicker,” the reality star said.
Melania’s sisters, however, were more outspoken. “They would always throw little jabs at me,” she said of Gia, 22, Gabriella, 18, and Audriana, 13. “But it was fine. It was whatever. … When I was in elementary school, yeah, it was cute. But then when I got to middle school, [my body] was starting to look a little not right.”
As the conversation continued, Teresa reminded her daughter of her “beautiful hair” and other attributes, asserting that Milania was always “adorable” in her eyes.
Teresa — who shares her four daughters with ex-husband Joe Giudice — previously opened up about Milania’s evolution while speaking about the family’s legal troubles at BravoCon in November 2019. (In March 2019, Joe completed his 41-month prison sentence for fraud. He later spent time in ICE custody and was deported to Italy.)
“It’s difficult. … My girls had to grow up quick because of everything we’ve been through,” Teresa said during the panel. “[Milania] saw a therapist last year. She had trouble in school. Now, she’s doing well in school. She lost over 40 pounds.”
One month after BravoCon, Us Weekly confirmed Teresa and Joe’s split. The twosome were married for 20 years, finalizing their divorce in September 2020.
