After almost 15 years on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa Giudice likes to keep it real.
The Bravolebrity is no stranger to speaking candidly about her past.
That’s why she has a legion of fans who will follow her wherever she goes, whether on TV or podcasts.
In a recent appearance on Hollywood Raw, the topic of the paparazzi came up, and the 51-year-old dropped quite the bombshell on hosts Adam Glyn and Dax Holt.
Teresa recalled making a deal with the paparazzi in the past because they wanted a photo of her leaving prison.
Giudice served almost a year in prison on fraud-related charges in 2015. Because people are obsessed with their favorite celebrities, she understood there would be interest in the first look of her emerging from her 11-month sentence.
Teresa knew the photo would be in high demand
“They wanted the first photo, and I did it,” she admitted, adding that she felt a photo would be taken anyway, so “I might as well make some money off of it.”
Ultimately, People magazine scored the exclusive rights to the lucrative pictures of her leaving the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut.
Teresa doesn’t recall how the deal was struck because it’s “been a while,” but she believes it was all thanks to her lawyer or representative.
In 2014, the reality TV star and then-husband, Joe Giudice, pleaded guilty to bank, mail, wire, bankruptcy, and tax fraud.
Teresa spent 11 months in prison in 2015
Her sentence was initially set to be 15 months but was only 11 months, signaling there was no table-flipping behavior from the star.
Meanwhile, Joe spent 41 months at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix, New Jersey, followed by seven months in an ICE detention center.
He was deported to Italy in 2019, but by then, the pair’s relationship was over, and Giudice has since moved on with Luis Ruelas, whom she married in August 2022.
During the podcast appearance, as mentioned above, Teresa opened up about her strained relationship with Joe following her prison release.
“I came home, I lost my mom eight months later. And then my dad moved in with us and was so upset,” she recalled.
“He cried for a year straight after my mother passed away, and then I had my dad with us for three years, and then he passed away.”
RHONJ Season 14 sounds like a disaster
Giudice remains the OG of NJ as it gears up for Season 14, but there’s a good chance the show will cease to exist for much longer if it continues to focus on her feud with sister-in-law Melissa Gorga.
Despite making plenty of strides over the years after their tough beginning on the show, it’s all fallen by the wayside as the pair’s relationship imploded again during the filming of The Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 13.
Sadly, it sounds like that feud will continue into RHONJ Season 14, and it could derail the show if the dynamic is as bad as we expect it to be.
There’s been plenty of behind-the-scenes drama, too, with Jennifer Aydin and Danielle Cabral investigated due to an alleged altercation while filming for the show.
It’s unclear where Teresa and Melissa stand today, but if their social media accounts are to be believed, they’re far apart, and that won’t be changing any time soon.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey is currently on hiatus at Bravo but is expected to return in mid-2024.