Sibling rivalry? Teresa Giudice got real about Joe and Melissa Gorga’s decision to skip her wedding — and it looks like the Real Housewives of New Jersey OG is taking the high road.
“Listen, I found out a few days before my wedding that they weren’t coming and I’m totally fine with it,” the 50-year-old Bravo personality told her “Namaste B$tches” podcast cohost Melissa Pfeister on the Wednesday, August 17 episode. “You’ll see it play out on TV. …. The way that everything played out with my wedding, everything that happened is the way it was supposed to be. I’m all about that. … I’m all about good energy, and whoever wanted to be at my wedding was there.”
The reality star’s comments echo what a source exclusively told Us Weekly two days after Giudice and Luis Ruelas’ August 6 nuptials.
“Teresa was given a day’s notice about them not attending, so it wasn’t like she was blindsided the day of,” the insider revealed. “She moved on with her wedding and didn’t let it ruin her happy day.”
As for what caused the rift between the siblings and Giudice’s sister-in-law, Melissa, 43, the insider noted that the trio had a “blowout fight,” which culminated in “Joe and Melissa [making] a last-minute decision to not attend Teresa’s wedding.” The argument centered around the New Jersey native bringing up a rumor about Melissa’s alleged infidelity, a second source told Us.
“One of the secrets was Melissa making out with this guy while she was on a press tour in the city,” the insider said. “This ‘rumor’ was something that Teresa had known about for over a year and had been pushing for it to come out. Finally, the [RHONJ season 13] finale was perfect timing.”
It was the Celebrity Apprentice alum’s revelation of the gossip that left Melissa “blindsided,” the first source claimed, noting, “That’s when things escalated and got out of control.” For his part, Joe, 42, believes that his sister “continues to attack Melissa, and … isn’t standing for it anymore.”
Melissa spoke candidly about the “laundry list … of reasons in our heads [of] why” she and her husband didn’t attend Giudice’s wedding on the Thursday, August 11, episode of her “On Display” podcast. “Obviously, there was something that went down at the finale of filming The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”
While the singer couldn’t reveal the “exact details” due to her RHONJ contract, she noted, “There was plenty of reasons for Joe and I to say it would be very strange — including everyone in that room, by the way — to look at Joe and I to say like, ‘Yes, it would be very strange for you guys to just be sitting in the pews tomorrow, like, wishing them well on their wedding day.’ It would be strange.”
The real estate developer noted that “[skipping the wedding] was one of the hardest days of my life. It was bad. But listen, let’s go back to the reunion. She did this. You know, this was all on her,” Joe said on the podcast. “This is what she really wanted. She didn’t want you in the wedding. She didn’t want any of my children in the wedding. She barely wanted me.”
Joe has further appeared to comment on the matter in his own way, sharing multiple shady sentiments via social media.
“Blood doesn’t make you family,” he wrote via Instagram in a since-delete post from August 5. “Disagreements are fine,” Joe captioned another Instagram upload on Tuesday, August 16. “Disrespect is not.”
Prior to their “blowout fight,” the real estate developer exclusively told Us that he was “so excited” for his sister’s pending wedding that he cried when she got engaged in October 2021.
“I’m so happy for her,” Joe gushed to Us at the time. “[Luis] came in like what she needed. She needed that Superman to come in and take her life and fix it, and that’s what he’s doing. I always said she needed a beast of a man, and he is one of them.”
Prior to her marriage to Ruelas, 47, Teresa was previously married to Joe Giudice for over two decades, from 1999 to 2020. The ex-couple — who both spent time in prison for tax fraud — share daughters Gia, 21, Gabriella, 17, Milania, 16, and Audriana, 12.
