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Sarah. Hello. Hey, Sachi. I imagine at this point, I don't have to tell you about my position on heterosexual marriage. Yeah, you love marriage famously. You want everyone to get married. Correct. I think even happy couples should get a divorce. But I am curious, would you sign a financial document that your husband gave you without like fully investigating what it was? Like, would you just say, yeah, sure, honey, and then sign it and trust him on it? I
I mean, obviously I would like to say no, but I've never been married or truly in love, really. So who knows what that does to your brain? Okay, well, that's for another day. But today I'm asking because our episode is about a certain infamous housewife who claims she trusted her husband's word. Sarah, I hope you're in the mood for some gabagool. We're going to New Jersey. ♪
It's 2008, and production for the first season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey is in full swing. The cast members and their families are all dressed up for dinner at a fancy white tablecloth restaurant. Around the table are soon-to-be icons like Caroline and Dina Manzo, Danielle Staub, and the woman who's about to become the most famous of them all, Teresa Giudice. ♪
Teresa's in her late 30s. She's wearing an olive green bodycon dress and her raven hair is floofed into loose curls. There's lavender eyeshadow all the way up to her brows and she's rocking a shimmering pendant around her neck. It's just a little bit smaller than the heart of the ocean. Sarah, please take a look at this photo.
I don't need to look at this photo. You know I know it in my head, right? I see it in my mind's eye. I know. I just wanted to pretend. You know, she looks very angry and her hands are firmly grasping a table. You know what she's about to do. I know. I know. Well, the dinner party is to celebrate some of Teresa's home renovation projects. After six years of work, she and her husband Joe and their daughters are almost ready to move into their enormous mansion.
For a while, Teresa holds court, loosening people up with topics like how often she and her husband have sex. She also brags about her other renovation project, her new boobs. But there's a cloud hanging over the dinner. One of the castmates has recently discovered a book called Cop Without a Badge. It's about Danielle's ex-husband, and it makes a lot of explosive claims.
For example, it alleges that Danielle was a sex worker and that she was involved with a Colombian cartel and that she has a criminal record. There's even a copy of her mugshot in it. The other housewives have been passing it around at the hair salon behind Danielle's back. And while they haven't confronted her about it, they can all feel the tension rising between her and them.
They wondered whether she would even show up to dinner tonight. But she does, in a slinky black mini dress with her auburn hair cut in bouncy layers. Her eyebrows have been plucked within an inch of their lives. And instead of running from the controversy, Danielle confronts it head on. During dessert, she dramatically pulls a copy of the book out from under her chair and sets it down on the table. And this, obviously, kicks off several minutes of yelling.
Sarah, I know you remember this moment, but I'm just going to ask, do you remember this moment? Yeah, it's as clear as memories from my childhood. Well, Danielle says that only two things in the book are true, that she's been arrested and that she changed her name. Everything else, she says, is bullshit. She specifically denies ever having been paid for sex.
Teresa is quiet through most of the night. And eventually, she chimes in to say that there must be some truth to the allegations in the book. And Danielle shouts back that she's already admitted that. And Teresa should, quote, pay attention. And this makes Teresa livid. And then she makes history when she shouts... Prostitution whore! You are f***ing gay! 90 times! You f***ing bitch!
I know the word iconic is overused to the point of having no meaning, but this is, of all the seasons of Housewives, of the thousands of hours of this entire franchise, this is the one thing everyone knows. Teresa going prostitution whore. It makes no sense.
It makes no sense, and yet it is exactly right. After this scene airs in the season one finale, it becomes a meme, a catchphrase, and then Teresa flips the dinner table over and becomes a star. But people rarely mention what Teresa says next. And I have no f***ing skeletons in my f***ing closet. Thank you very much. Teresa is flipping tables in a glass house because she's got more skeletons in her closet than anyone knows.
Danielle might be the center of this particular interrogation, but Teresa is the one destined to end up in prison. From Wondery, I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers.
You don't have to be a real housewives obsessive to know Teresa Giudice. She's one of the most famous housewives in history. And with her big hair and big macho husband and huge table-flipping temper, it's easy to see why. Teresa is a star, and she essentially created the hot-headed housewife archetype that has been adopted by so many others. But more importantly to our story, she pioneered the quintessential housewife scam, lying about how much money you have in order to get more money.
And that's just the start. I'm calling this story the ecstasy of St. Teresa Giudice.
The other housewives we've covered on this show met their husbands in college or while on the job. But not Teresa. She met her husband Giuseppe, otherwise known as Joe, through her mom and dad. So that's where we'll start this story. Teresa and Joe's parents are best friends, and they have a lot in common. They're all from a small village in Italy called Sala Consolina. And that's where Joe was born in 1970.
By the time Teresa is born in Patterson, New Jersey, two years later, Joe and his family are living there as well. In fact, Teresa writes in her memoir, Turning the Tables, that Joe's parents even bring him to meet her in the hospital when she's born. The two families spend a lot of time together throughout the 70s and the 80s. Teresa is first-generation American, but her parents instill in her the Italian values they were raised with.
They tell her that if she doesn't have family, she has nothing. And it's a lesson that Teresa's mother learned firsthand. When she was just a baby, her father went to Venezuela to find work, and he never came back. No one knew what happened to him or if he was even alive. Teresa's grandmother was so heartbroken that she stopped leaving the house and then tragically died a few years later. This was Teresa's warning of what happens when you lose your family.
I mean, this is already so dramatic. Like, of course she ended up being a housewife, you know? It was dusted in the stars. But as Teresa grows up, she learns that family doesn't have to mean blood.
She and Joe seem fated to be together from the start. She writes in Turning the Tables that as kids, they go to the basement of one of their houses and give each other little kisses. Soon enough, they're in their late teens, and their basement rendezvous have evolved into makeout sessions at the Jersey Shore. They date on and off for a few years, until Teresa is 23. And then they decide to get serious, and that means it's time to tell their parents. Joe takes Teresa to a big family party as his date.
And after Teresa's dad sits Joe down for one of those "you better not hurt her" talks, they're off to the races. Joe and Teresa get married when they're both in their late 20s. The ceremony is held at a historic Roman Catholic cathedral in Newark. It's gothic, with stained glass windows and spires, and totally over the top. Teresa rides there in a vintage Excalibur, which looks like a 1920s gangster car. Sarah, please take a look at this photo of our happy couple.
They look great. They look really young and they look happy. Her dress is like, it's so of the time that I feel like we are two trends away from this being how weddings look again. Yeah, the whole affair is extremely late 90s. The theme is Shakespeare in Love, the Gwyneth Paltrow movie that came out just a year earlier in 1998. And Teresa and Joe's first dance is set to the very popular 98 Degrees song, I Do Cherish You.
The star-crossed lovers are ready to start their new life together. And they have big dreams, almost as big as Teresa's hair.
In May 2000, just seven months after her wedding, Teresa gets pregnant. She'd been working hard to build her career in fashion, including as a corporate salesperson for Calvin Klein. But when her daughter Gia is born, she decides to become a full-time mom. She can't stand the thought of being away from the baby all day. Joe has been working in construction, and he's recently added another stream of income: real estate. Luckily, he's making enough money to support the whole family.
He buys up properties, renovates them, and then resells them or rents them out. But there's a problem with his scheme. In order to buy the buildings, he needs to get mortgage loans. And he's not doing well enough financially to qualify for the big loans that he wants. So he starts lying on the applications, making up fake jobs, pay stubs, and W-2s, exaggerating his income. And he enlists Teresa to do the same.
On a loan application from September 2001, she claims that she's been an executive assistant for a company called Modern Era Investment Corp for four years, even though she's a stay-at-home mom. I mean, listen, September 2001, a lot was happening. No one was really going to catch this lie. Yeah. Well, the phony application pays off. Teresa and Joe get approved for a mortgage of over $120,000.
And it's just one of a handful of big loans that they get over the next few years. This kind of fraud is a stereotypical New Jersey crime, to the point where there's literally a Sopranos episode where Tony runs a similar scheme. I read about this, uh, for Casey mortgage loans or something, right? But Teresa is more of a Carmela than a Tony. In her other memoir, Standing Strong, she says that all she did was sign a bunch of paperwork.
She says that she assumed it was all legit because she did it in front of lawyers and brokers, professionals who would know. Then she explains why she kept the business at an arm's length. Here she is in the audiobook. I was never involved in his business. Nothing. Hello? What would I know about construction? I do believe her at this point, but...
Because, you know, she is very much just a housewife here. And she's like, cool, my husband's providing for me. He just needs to be assigned some stuff. Like, I don't think necessarily the first thing you're going to think when it's your lifelong love is we're lying here. You know, like, I do think this is plausible to not know. Yeah. I'm kind of of two minds because this sounds a little convenient for Teresa, right?
But on the other hand, she and Joe live by traditional family values. The husband takes care of the shady finances, and the housewife uses the money to take care of the house. In this case, it's a 10,000 square foot, six bedroom, five bathroom mansion on a four acre property. It's about 15 minutes away from the actual Sopranos house. And they buy it in 2002 for half a million dollars.
It still needs a lot of work, which means the Dudiches are going to need a lot of money. The dream home won't come easy. Joe and Teresa's traditional values are about to be put to the test.
Sometime around 2004, Joe has his eye on an apartment building he wants to buy. So he hits up the broker in charge of the listing, a man whose name is also Joe. Joe Masterpole is a true blue jersey boy. Broad, tanned, and knows his way around a bottle of hair gel. He sells Joe G. the building. And after that, the two Joes start running into each other at a coffee shop, and they become friends. It's a meathead meet-cute, Sarah. ♪
Aw, that's nice. I like when men become friends. Well, Joe Masterpole has some vacant lots he wants to build on, and Joe Gee has the construction background to make it happen. They work so well together that by 2005, they've co-founded three different LLCs.
Under these companies, they buy up properties, fix them up, and either rent them out and manage the buildings or sell them for a profit. But after about a year, things start to go downhill. The Joes are fighting over how much work and money they're each contributing to the properties. Plus, Joe M has started to take issue with some of Joe G's business practices. He later testifies in court that Joe G has been stealing tenant security deposits and going out and partying with the money. Joe Masterpoll wants out.
He and the other Joe come to an agreement on how to sever ties. Joe G. will buy out Joe M.'s stake in the three companies they co-own, plus pay off a mortgage on one of their shared properties. The total amount he owes comes to $586,000.
Not long after that, the two Joes meet in private without lawyers to figure out a payment plan. And we don't exactly know where this meeting happened, but I'm going to imagine that it's in this classic red sauce Italian restaurant. And over this hypothetical chicken parm, they write the terms of the deal out on a cocktail napkin and sign it. I mean, this whole episode to me is taking place in a red sauce Italian restaurant. So, yeah, that tracks. Yeah.
Well, somehow the napkin turns into a formal contract that gets filed in court in June 2007. Joe G pays Joe M $300,000, which is only about half of what he owes. He says he'll give him the rest of the money by December 1st, 2007. But the deadline comes and it goes. By the end of the month, Joe G finally shows up to Joe M's office with money. But it's only five grand, just a small fraction of what he still owes.
Joe M. thinks all of this is incredibly suspicious. Or, as he later testifies in court, he thinks Joe G. is, quote, up to something. The Giugice's are making a lifelong enemy out of one of their closest friends. And even with all of these ticking legal time bombs around her, Teresa decides to put herself under the harshest spotlight of all, reality TV. ♪
Around this same time, producers at Bravo reach out to Teresa. They're putting together a new Real Housewives series based in her neck of the woods, and they want her to be on it.
Teresa is skeptical. As she later puts in her book, Turning the Tables, quote, I remember thinking, why would anyone want to do a show about regular wives and moms like us and document our day-to-day lives? The producers know exactly what they're looking for. They've been scouting at Chateau Salon, a full-service hair and nail spot with white leather chairs, ornate mirrors, and a lot of fake flowers. That's where they met Dina Manzo. Dina Manzo is a
Dina is tan and blonde, and she tells the producer they have to talk to her friend, Teresa. And when producers pull up to her McMansion, they cannot look away.
The Giudice's mansion isn't quite move-in ready, but years of renovation have made it one of the biggest and loudest houses in the neighborhood. There's an ornate water fixture, a grand split staircase, and a wine cellar. The interiors are all marble, granite, and onyx. And on top, there are literal turrets. Here's a photo.
I mean, this house is so weird looking. It's so ugly. It's very ugly. And it's like the house where a kid in high school who tells her mom to shut up in front of everyone lives. It is the mean girl house. That is true. Yeah.
Well, the producers are obviously smitten. They tell Teresa they need to have her on the show. But she's still not convinced. She says that she's nervous about what might happen if she goes on TV. But Sarah, I don't buy it. I think Teresa knew what she was doing the whole time.
And a short while later, around the beginning of 2008, Teresa has lunch with her friend Jacqueline Lurita at a Chinese restaurant. Jacqueline puts a Real Housewives contract on the table for Teresa. And she says that if Teresa doesn't do the show, then she won't either.
Teresa decides that it would be nice to have her family memories captured forever on television, like a big budget home movie. And years later, on her podcast, she says, I didn't even have a lawyer. I signed on the, like in front of her. She had the contract. I signed the contract with Jacqueline. And then both of us go to the FedEx box and she's like, here it goes. You know when you hear about how like a band is formed, like a very legendary band?
musical act or like how a group of artists get together. Like this is that for us. This is this is the inception of the Beatles to you and I. Yeah, this is, you know, there needs to be a documentary about this. Correct.
Well, with that, Teresa joins the show alongside Caroline and Dina Manzo. They're sisters who are married to two brothers. And those brothers' other brother is married to Jacqueline. Oh, and also, fun fact, Caroline and Dina's father-in-law was Albert Tiny Manzo, an alleged mob enforcer. In 1983, his body was found in the trunk of his Lincoln Continental, riddled with gunshot wounds. And while the Manzos might be the only ones outwardly connected to the mob, its
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It's May of 2009, and the Real Housewives of New Jersey are making their Bravo debut. I imagine Joe Mastropole is one of the millions of viewers watching at home. We don't know for sure, but it's not hard to picture him seething, teeth clenched, at the sight of his ex-business partner's wife driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, fluffing her hair. The cameras show her trying on a bikini at a local mall and contemplating getting breast implants, even though she says that Joe is more of an ass guy. ♪
But Joe Masterpoll is probably especially shocked when he sees Teresa and Jacqueline go furniture shopping. Jacqueline tells the viewers why she loves shopping with Teresa. Teresa has no limits. And during one scene alone, she buys 120 grand worth of furniture and starts counting out bills because as she puts it in a confessional, I hear the economy's crashing, so that's why I pay cash.
Girl math. She invented girl math. Yeah, I mean, I guess that makes sense because she said it like it does. Also, $120,000 on furniture, that is, you know, some of the least comfortable looking ugly shit you've ever seen in your life. Well, this first season ends with Teresa's iconic table flipping moment, which instantly guarantees a second season for the New Jersey Housewives.
Joe Mastropole probably hates watching this, but I'm guessing at least one thing might make it a little more bearable. He's about to get revenge on the Giudices. His lawyers have recently discovered a smoking gun. They say that Joe G. forged Joe M.'s signature on paperwork claiming the mortgage they owed him was paid off. That fraudulent paperwork allowed them to take out another huge loan from the bank for more than $2 million.
Joe Gee doesn't deny that he forged Joe Mastropole's name on the paperwork, but his lawyer claims the two Joes signed each other's names all the time and had each other's permission.
Joe M. isn't buying it. He files a lawsuit against the Giugices, and in October 2009, he wins a judgment for $255,000. That's the remaining amount on the mortgage. But six days after the decision, the Giugices file for bankruptcy, claiming they owe debtors more than $10 million. Joe Masterpole is furious. This could let Joe G. and Teresa out of paying their debts, including to him.
So a few months later, he files another complaint to try to make sure they can't get out of paying him. It's been a nasty legal battle so far, but the media hasn't yet caught on to all the paperwork. When they do, Teresa will have to put her forceful personality to the test in the court of public opinion. When the New York Post digs up the Jujiche's bankruptcy filings in June 2010, it becomes front page news.
This comes just a day after the Post published a piece called "Broke Housewives Hubby Accused of Forgery." Suddenly, Teresa's family business has become a very big scandal. And Teresa has some 'splaining' to do. So, in August, two months after the controversy erupts, Teresa goes on The View to address it head-on. She wears a strapless black and white Empire waist top dotted with flowers.
Her hair is styled in loose curls. Long chandelier earrings graze her shoulders. And by this point, The Real Housewives of New Jersey is in its second season, and Teresa is a fan favorite and a tabloid staple. And she's parlayed her fame into a number of business deals, like an online boutique called TG Fabulous and a cookbook called Skinny Italian. Her image as a high-rolling housewife and big-time entrepreneur makes her enormous debt all the more head-spinning,
And on the set of The View, the anchors can't wait to grill her about it. Here's co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck. On your show, we've seen you spend, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars on your wardrobe, on your home, etc. And then come to find out this past October, you and your husband Joe filed for bankruptcy and you're $11 million in debt. But you had no idea? Teresa explains that she and Joe have been having trouble collecting rent from certain tenants. Remember, they're still landlords.
She also says that they're suffering because of the lawsuit with her husband's former business partner, Joe Mastropole. But the math isn't mathing. Everyone is mystified by the Giudice's finances, including their bankruptcy trustees. In their initial filing, Joe and Teresa tried to hide their biggest assets. They focused mostly on small things, like a $500 swing set and their dogs, supposedly worth $300 each.
But they're asked to make provisions to their petition again and again, each time adding new things. Small stuff, you know, like their cars, a boat, a whole other bank account. And still, their creditors and the trustees dig up other assets, like the $280,000 advance Teresa received for her cookbook, her several thousand dollars a month salary from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, and an investment in a pizza parlor.
I mean, they are not making a great case for themselves or adding so many layers to their fraud that it's hard to be like, well, you know, things just kind of happen this way. Yeah, they are not good representations for themselves.
Like, in one court hearing, they reveal that within days of their bankruptcy filing, the Giudices blew thousands of dollars on home decor, including nearly nine grand for curtains and nearly $45,000 on things like mirrors, frames, tables, urns, and chairs. Even their own lawyer admits in court that this is a tricky thing to reconcile. Joe and Teresa come up with an explanation. It's Joe's fault.
Teresa says under oath that she didn't even know her husband had filed for bankruptcy at first. Joe says he forged Teresa's name on everything. To make matters worse, Teresa's table-flipping temper comes out one day while in court. She explodes at Joe Mastropole's lawyer's wife for apparently sharing her business around town. And the other woman bites back, calling Teresa a bully. In January 2011, a judge rules that even with their bankruptcy, the Giudice still need to pay Joe M. back.
Two months later, their attorney receives a letter confirming that Joe and Teresa are now under investigation for federal fraud charges. By the end of the year, they drop their bankruptcy petition and cancel plans to sell their belongings. But it's too little, too late. They're about to engage in a time-honored, stereotypically Jersey tradition, dealing with the feds. It's July 2013, and Teresa and Joe are pulling up to a courthouse in Newark.
Teresa is dressed in all white, her hair in a high ponytail, and Joe is wearing a black suit and dark sunglasses. They look incredible, but they're worried. Joe and Teresa have just been indicted on 39 counts, including mail and wire fraud, for fabricating bank documents and fraudulently collecting $4 million worth of loans. They hold hands as they walk into court, putting on a strong front as a couple. But rumors have been circulating that Joe is having an affair.
About a year earlier, The Real Housewives of New Jersey aired an episode featuring a hot mic moment of a tipsy Joe calling Teresa, quote, my bitch wife. He tells Teresa that the conversation was captured while he was talking to an employee. But there's a lot of speculation that he was talking to his woman on the side.
It is like crazy that the best defense is being like, no, I wasn't talking to another woman. I was calling you a bitch wife to someone else. I was merely insulting you to a colleague and friend. Also, at this point, you've been filming long enough to know how these mics work. You know, when you're right, you're right.
Well, the courthouse is a media circus. TV helicopters circle overhead and reporters swarm Joe and Teresa's car. It's too much for Joe. He pushes a camera out of the way as they head inside. Joe and Teresa plead not guilty, but it's hard for Joe to stay calm, especially when the judge informs him that he could be deported to Italy if convicted. He never got American citizenship, and he worries about who will take care of Teresa and their daughters if he ends up having to, as he puts it, go to college.
Teresa and Joe are each released on $500,000 bond. But the chaos continues on their way out of the courthouse. A reporter asks Joe's mom how she feels about the prospects of Joe being deported. And she responds, quote, none of your fucking business. The family hops in a white SUV and are tailed by paparazzi the whole way home. When they get back to the mansion, Joe's dad flips the bird to the paparazzi. And then he makes this iconic gesture. Sarah, please describe it.
Yeah, it's one of those paparazzi shots where people are kind of like walking into somewhere and he is bent over kind of in a kiss my ass gesture is how I'd interpret this. Yeah, it's like a Renaissance painting, honestly. The tabloids are obsessed with the Giudice's day in court. They run headlines about Joe facing up to 55 years in prison and Teresa's enemies coming out of the woodwork.
And the headlines only ramp up a few months later when Joe and Teresa are indicted on two additional charges of bank fraud and loan application fraud. Joe and Teresa don't know what the future holds, but they do know one thing. They're going to prison. About a year later, in October 2014, Teresa is in a Newark courtroom about to be sentenced. She hasn't been eating or sleeping much because she's been so stressed out about today.
About seven months earlier, she and Joe decided to reverse course, and they plead guilty to a handful of fraud charges. We don't know why exactly, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming. They might just have decided it would be better to try to get a deal. And now they have no illusions. Both of them are facing lengthy prison time. Teresa watches as Joe tells the judge he is humiliated and disgraced. And when it's her turn, Teresa breaks down in tears and apologizes.
She says she doesn't care about the TV show or about material things. She only cares about her four daughters, Gia, Gabriela, Melania, and Adriana.
Their lawyer also begs for leniency because Joe's beloved father had died a few months before. But the judge is not happy. Because even with all the consequences they're now facing, Joe and Teresa still didn't list all of their assets on their sentencing forms. They left off huge things, like Teresa's businesses, Skinny Italian and Melania Hair Care. Even the judge is having a hard time understanding all of the documents in this case.
He actually says that they were harder to decipher than any he's ever encountered. And then the judge addresses Teresa. Can you read what he tells her? Yeah, he says, when you sign something, it's a bond. You are not as bad as your husband. You do not have the criminal record that he has had, but you are complicit in it. I mean, yes, she is. Regardless of what she knew at certain moments, it is your duty as an adult to know what you're doing. Yeah, she should have known what she was signing. Yeah.
Teresa is sentenced to 11 months in prison and Joe is sentenced to more than three years. The judge decides that Teresa will serve her sentence first and then Joe so that one parent will always be home to look after the kids. Teresa can barely process all of this. She just stands there blinking. I didn't even know this was like a thing that judges did. It is all things considered quite generous. How lucky.
Yeah, that is like the best case scenario for this level of fraud. Well, the news reverberates through the Housewives universe. The fans are conflicted. A lot of them think Teresa was just a pawn in Joe's plan, while others think she was a full-fledged co-conspirator. Teresa spends the holidays with her family, but her family is not.
But early one morning in January 2015, she gets in the back of a Denali with her lawyer and a security guard. For years, Teresa has been an iconic real housewife of New Jersey because she doesn't run from a fight. But now, she's going to have a whole new set of fights with higher stakes than ever. Teresa Giudice is about to become a real housewife of the Federal Correctional Institution of Danbury, Connecticut.
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The Danbury Correctional Institution is located about an hour and a half from Teresa's hometown in New Jersey. It's a sprawling minimum security compound, the same one that housed the author of Orange is the New Black. And it looks like Teresa is getting along with her fellow inmates just fine. Take a look at this group photo published in People magazine.
Oh, I love this photo. It's Teresa with other women and they're in their prison uniforms, all gray and white. And Teresa's sitting in front on a chair backwards. She looks like she's not having the worst time. It looks like they're all learning poetry together or something in English class.
I mean, again, prison bad. Prison bad, except. But this is the kind of photo of someone who's thriving, you know? It kind of is. And in her memoir, Turning the Tables, Teresa writes about the creativity and resourcefulness of her fellow inmates. She says they make and sell dildos by wrapping a maxi pad around a toothbrush or two, taping them together, and sticking it in a rubber glove that they got from the kitchen.
She also keeps notes about her time in prison, including one about a going-away party for one of her friends who was getting released. Can you read what she writes? Yeah, she writes, halfway through the party, one of the girls says, Teresa can't dance. This led to a twerking competition, and this white girl from New Jersey was booty-popping with the best of them. Everyone was laughing and saying, go, Teresa, pop that booty. Teresa's booty was hurting next day. Happy face. I mean...
She's such an innocent. There's something so endearing about Teresa, like as wild and inappropriate as she is. And this is like the perfect example where I'm like, I know I should feel maybe a different way about this, but I love it. Well, Teresa might have spent some of her time in prison booty popping, but she also takes this time to pop her soul. She's
She gets into books like The Secret and The Law of Attraction. She makes a vision board using pictures from magazines. She still spends a lot of time thinking about her haters, but now she wants them to find peace in their hearts and learn to let things go.
One night, Teresa gets into a fight with a fellow inmate over some rumors, and then she just walks away. Even she can barely believe it. The old Teresa would have literally flipped a table over, but all those inspirational books, the yoga, the Bible studies, they have helped her become a more calm and collected person. That is, at least according to her own memoir.
Partway through her time in prison, a bunch of inmates get together in the TV room to watch a Real Housewives of New Jersey special called Teresa Checks In. It follows Teresa's family while she's been away. Teresa feels sorry for herself, but her new friends remind her how rare it is to get a peek at their families from the outside. They cry when they see Teresa's parents crying, and they cheer when they see Teresa talking to her family on the phone.
That's sweet. I mean, it seems like based off this alone, she did find genuine friendships. They're being nicer to her than I would if we were all in prison, I gotta say. Yeah, but, you know, female friendship rocks. It's a beautiful lesson. Well, Joe has tried to be the strong, silent type, but even over the phone, Teresa can tell that he's stressed out about his own upcoming prison stint. In her book, Turning the Tables, she writes that he's been drowning his sorrows in alcohol instead of talking about his feelings.
Teresa gets released from prison in December 2015. Finally, she can go home, except that home feels different. She starts to resent Joe, blaming him for the strain he's put on their marriage over the last few years. But there's no time to reconcile. Joe goes in just three months after Teresa gets out, and his sentence is years longer. This means more waiting, more stress, and more pressure.
And now, Joe and Teresa are at risk of losing what they claim to value most, their family. It's November 2019, about eight months after Joe got out of federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. After that, he was held in ICE custody and then deported. Now, he's living on the other side of the world, in his hometown of Sala Consolina, Italy.
Teresa and their four daughters are here to see him. They're filming season 10 of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, so Bravo cameras follow their every move. Teresa and the girls walk the cobblestone streets. When they get to Joe's charming brick house, the girls run up to him, bursting with excitement. But Teresa hangs back. She strokes her daughter's hair and then gives Joe a quick peck on the lips. Joe is thinner and older. He's not the beefcake he once was.
They are immediately swallowed up by their big, warm extended family. They eat a feast of pasta, cured meat and cheese prepared by Joe's uncle. It looks blissful, but there's palpable tension.
Teresa hasn't seen Joe in person in almost four years. And during that time, she's been busy remaking her image, literally. She's a competitive bodybuilder now, and she's published two memoirs, all while filming multiple seasons of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The calmer, more collected persona she took on while in prison seems to have vanished because she's back to picking fights with her castmates. ♪
Meanwhile, it seems like Joe and Teresa are fighting as well. There are persistent rumors of Joe's infidelity. And when he and Teresa appeared on Watch What Happens Live recently, Teresa in the studio and Joe via livestream, they barely spoke to each other. Here's what Teresa told host Andy Cohen. Like I said, I've been on my own now for three years and seven months. And, you know, we're both two different people now.
Damn, that's real. It's one of the saddest interviews I've ever seen. It's so bleak. Yeah, you meet someone when you're basically a child. You go through all this legal trouble. You guys get separated for so long. Of course you're going to turn into a different person, right? Well, about a month after Teresa visits Joe in Italy, they announce they're separating. After more than two decades of marriage and a lifetime of friendship, Teresa and Joe's love story has come to an end.
These days, Teresa is still a real housewife of New Jersey and probably the most famous of them all. In August 2022, she married a fellow New Jerseyite named Louis Ruliales. Teresa's hairstyle alone reportedly cost $10,000 and required 1,500 bobby pins to stay in place. Sarah, please take a look at it.
Yeah, another photo I know very well. She has a lot of hair in a crown and then hair going down. You're not going to be able to make sense of what's happening up there. It's like several snakes.
But you know what? It is so classic Teresa. You know, she's just being herself and it becomes instantly cemented into pop culture where people I know who don't even know who she is know this hairstyle. Well, meanwhile, Luis is the co-founder of a digital advertising company that's been at the center of multiple lawsuits, including for telemarketing harassment and violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
The company has settled the lawsuit and denied wrongdoing. As for Joe, Teresa's ex, he's become an entrepreneur. In 2020, he announced a partnership with a sex toy company. And more recently, he launched a luxury yachting company that offers private tours along the coast of Italy and the Bahamas, where he now lives. And it seems like he and Teresa are on good terms. She promoted his yachting business on her Instagram last May, posting photos of Joe and her kids in the Bahamas.
Speaking of their kids, their eldest daughter, Gia, just graduated from Rutgers University. She plans to go into immigration law, in part inspired by her father's ordeal. Sarah, isn't she just like such a meadow soprano?
Yeah, I mean, I know Gia best from the show singing that, you know, very amazing and sad, tearful song about how she wakes up in the morning thinking so many things. Yeah. And you know what? I actually am glad things got better for her because she's working hard and I don't feel like it's easy to be the child of a real housewife. And she's kind of just doing the best she can, you know? Everybody is. Yeah.
In February 2023, Teresa appears on daytime TV to teach Drew Barrymore how to flip a table. Teresa is still trapped by the moment that made her famous almost 15 years ago. No matter how much she might want to change, she still has to act like the Teresa we all know and love. But Teresa's temper is no longer personal. Now it's strictly business.
Sarah, I think that by the end of the decade, we might do an episode on every single housewife, it feels like. Yeah, I mean, I think what this is revealing is that to be a character on a reality TV show like The Housewives, you got to scam a little. It does seem ripe for a certain kind of personality type that's like predisposed to scamming. I mean, do you think all of our housewife scammers have something in common? Yeah.
Yeah, I do. I think it is being obsessed with wealth by any means necessary. It starts off so slowly and like in like a dubious, you know, legal gray area, and then it kind of evolves into full on scam. And I don't think a lot of them set out to scam.
scam initially. And also a lot of it is, you know, following their husbands who are just kind of like, yeah, let's do this. I think one thing that was interesting and informative about this particular episode was how long her and Joe had been together. This was almost like a family arrangement. Like they were children when they met. It speaks, I think, volumes to the fact that she was able to leave him, frankly. That must have been very hard. Yeah, I think it's so nuts where it's like,
Oh, this person shaped you throughout your entire adulthood and formative years. Like, it is such a crazy, unique type of relationship where it's like, not only did you know each other when you were young, but you grew up to be famous in this way that didn't even exist when you guys found out about each other. I think that's also why they probably are on good terms now, it seems. Yeah.
Because, like, you can't really just throw that away, right? I'm shocked at the maturity the two of them have shown in their divorce. I kind of like it. You know what? They are family no matter what. Well, you know what's the most important thing in life, Sarah? Family. It's family. The last thing I need to ask you, Sarah, this came up, you know, when we were working on this episode.
Teresa says her last name in a varietal of ways, but one of them was Giudice for a good long time before she realized she was Italian and that perhaps it was Giudice. I'm just curious, are you on the Giudice side or the Giudice side? I mean, Giudice makes the most sense, but I think she was doing what a lot of people do, which was anglicizing her last name because she thought it was hard to say.
But then everyone just got so confused because like, wait a second, is it Judice? Judice? I still don't know what people are, what the majority of people are saying, but like, why would you say Judice? Well, you know what they say, always a Judice, never a Judice. Yeah, that is a common thing. They say it all the time. This is the ecstasy of St. Teresa Judice. I'm Sachi Cole.
And I'm Sarah Hagee. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamfluencers at wondery.com. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Bravo's The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa's two memoirs,
The rise and fall of Teresa Giudice by Kate Arthur in BuzzFeed News and Teresa and Joe Giudice sentenced to prison. How the judge scolded the Real Housewives of New Jersey stars by Esther Lee and Travis Cronin in Us Weekly. Jessica Ford wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagee. Sarah Enni is our story editor and producer and Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact-checking by Gabrielle Drolet. Sound design by Ryan Potesta.
Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock and our managing producer is Matt Gant. Janine Cornelow and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary. Our producers are John Reed, Yasmin Ward, and Kate Young. Our senior producers are Ginny Bloom and Jen Swan. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Marsha Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.
If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.