She’s got her back. Real Housewives of New Jersey star Dolores Catania opened up to Us Weekly about costar Teresa Giudice and how she’s handling the tough times she’s currently facing, including her husband’s deportation to his native Italy.
“You know she is going through so much,” Catania, 47, dished to Us at the Dreamworks Trolls the Experience event in New York City on Wednesday, November 14. “Her dad [Giacinto Gorga] is now in the hospital for ,like, over a week.”
She continued: “He went in right before the premiere so we had press the day before. She was literally running back and forth from New York to [the] New Jersey hospital. She left at 2:30 in the morning to go back to see him and then came back by 5 p.m.. I don’t know how she did it.”
As for whether Giudice, 46, is openly speaking about Joe Giudice’s October court order to deport to Italy following his prison sentence for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud, Catania explained, “Teresa and I were raised the same way so I can speak for her on this.”
“Talking about it brings light to it,” Catania continued. “Before we knew that there was light to it, you just didn’t address it, you got through it, you piled through it. You didn’t dwell on it. You didn’t talk about it. Does that make sense? It’s an old school way.”
Catania isn’t the only one who realizes that Teresa has hit a rough patch. “Teresa is having a really hard time,” an insider previously told Us. “Her dad is not doing well at all. She’s really missing Joe right now and having him to lean on. Teresa has been dealing with a lot emotionally between being away from Joe, the court orders and now her dad being sick and in the hospital.”
Joe’s legal trouble isn’t pulling them apart, though. “Teresa is hoping after all this hardship, it brings her and Joe closer,” the source added. “She wants to work on their relationship and she’s praying he can stay here and not go to Italy. She is closer to Joe than ever before now and they are really leaning on each other during this hard times.”
Teresa and Joe are parents to four daughters: Gia, 17, Gabriella, 14, Milania, 12, and Audriana, 9.
With reporting by Nicki Gostin
