Like many Real Housewives of New Jersey fans, Caroline Manzo has witnessed Teresa and Joe Guidice’s struggles amid his deportation drama, and she exclusively told Us Weekly she gets “no joy” out of watching her former costar suffer.
“I think that if there are people that get joy in that, shame on you,” the 57-year-old added, speaking to Us at BravoCon in New York City on Friday, November 15. “There are four beautiful, beautiful babies [whose] lives [are] forever changed because of that and you can’t discount and dismiss that. … Joe belongs home with his girls. If the marriage is broken, the marriage is broken. That doesn’t make them any less of a person. It means s–t happens, you know?”
While Manzo feels “badly” for Teresa, she also told Us she’d be living in Italy if she were in the cookbook author’s position. “But their marriage has suffered because of it, so I understand her decision, you know?” she said. “It’s sad for those children. It’s very, very sad.”
Onstage during BravoCon’s Bravo All Stars: OG Housewives Edition panel on Friday, Manzo revealed she watched Andy Cohen’s sit-down with Teresa and Joe Guidice last month. “I was happy for Joe — he looked at peace,” she said. “She looked completely detached. I almost thought she was on a couple of Xannies or something, and I don’t blame her if she did.”
She went on: “It made me very, very sad because I like them together. … I, to this very second, am hoping that he gets to come home, especially to his girls. … The marriage to me clearly looks broken, and that’s OK too. S–t happens.”
In October 2018, while Joe spent time behind bars as a result of his and Teresa’s 2014 fraud conviction, a judge ordered the 47-year-old to be deported to his native Italy. When he completed his 41-month prison sentence in March of this year, he was immediately taken into ICE custody. And last month, he flew to Italy while continuing to fight the deportation.
Teresa, 47, visited the restaurant owner in Italy alongside the couple’s four daughters — Gia, 18, Gabriella, 15, Milania, 13, and Audriana, 10 — earlier this month.
“We had the best time ever. It was so good,” the RHONJ star told Good Morning America in an interview airing Thursday, November 14. “He said he cried after we left. He cried the whole day, he said. Missing his daughters. He was so sad.”
In the same interview, she opened up about the future of her marriage to Joe, whom she wed in 1999. “I don’t know. Imagine he lived in Italy and you live here. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if that’s, like, a feasible relationship,” she said. “To be determined. We’re taking it day by day.”
She continued: “There’s always going to be a place in my heart for Joe. I’m always going to love him no matter what.”
With reporting by Brody Brown
