Andy Cohen says The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s next season will be different now that Melissa Gorga and Teresa Giudice openly “hate each other” — and their costars mostly agree.
“It’s true,” Dolores Catania exclusively told Us Weekly at BravoCon on Friday, November 3. “I don’t like to say the word hate. [The way] I grew up, you were allowed to swear in my house and say everything but two words. You can’t say the word hate or God’s name in vain. And that really is a very strong word. But I mean, I don’t think there’s any coming back. It’s very, very sad.”
Dolores, 52, said the duo’s dynamic has been particularly “hard” on her because she’s known both Melissa, 44, and Teresa, 51, for so many years.
“I don’t usually let anything in life affect my everyday life,” Dolores explained. “Even if something happens outside of the show, I shake it off. I move on. This season got the best of me. … How could they hate each other anymore than they do?”
She went on to note that her friends “know better” than to ask her to choose sides in their feuds. “I’ll be there for all of them,” Dolores told Us. “I will be there for all of their family, their friends. They need anything from me, they have it. I don’t support the fighting, but I support my friends.”
Rachel Fuda, meanwhile, thinks Melissa and Teresa didn’t talk “a whole lot about each other” while filming season 14. “That says a lot. Silence speaks volumes,” Rachel, 32, told Us on Saturday, November 4. “I think in a way they figured out how to coexist.”
Jennifer Aydin — who’s had her own drama with the Gorgas in the past — doesn’t think the drama between Melissa and Teresa is totally over, but she hinted that their feud is less of a focus in the upcoming episodes.
“This season is definitely a continuation of what happened last season, and I think people are going to really get to see and listen,” Jennifer, 46, told Us on Friday. “This show is about friendships. I know it’s about conflict, but friendships are why people watch. They don’t want to see people fighting all the time. They like the people fighting, but they like the people making up better.”
Melissa, for her part, played coy when asked about whether she and Teresa openly hate each other, saying she thinks Andy, 55, was trying to say that this season will be more “authentic.”
“It felt lighter. It felt refreshing. I wasn’t trying to block punches and accusations and character assassinations, and so I think it’s a lighter season for me,” Melissa told Us on Saturday. “It wasn’t so like, ‘Oh, the saga of the family.’ I feel like everyone’s done with that, including us. So, let’s be authentic and be done with it. We don’t want to see it anymore. I need to protect my peace.”
Melissa went on to say that she and Teresa “are taking a minute,” but her sister-in-law wasn’t as circumspect.
“That chapter’s closed,” Teresa told Us on Friday. “I don’t even want to comment on it. It’s been so long now. I am so over that.”
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
