Melissa Gorga is slamming Luis Ruelas and his wife, Teresa Giudice, for stabbing Joe Gorga in the back amid a business deal gone wrong.
After Real Housewives of New Jersey fans learned Luis lost a $250,000 investment he made into what would’ve been a pizza oven business with the Gorgas and Teresa, Teresa admitted she advised Luis against the idea as Melissa threw major shade.
“I told him not to do it and he trusted my brother,” Teresa revealed on the March 28 episode of the RHONJ: After Show. “Why is my brother mad? He didn’t lose the money. Luis lost the money. If anything, Luis should be mad.”
But while Teresa didn’t understand Joe’s issue, Melissa labeled “pizza gate” as the “beginning of the end” for their families, noting that it was “another secret we held for them.”
“That was the beginning of Joe kind of looking at Luis sideways … Who stabs their brother in the back like that?” she asked, seemingly blaming Teresa for the demise of the business. “That’s some sick sh-t … It’s just baffling.”
Then, when Rachel Fuda wondered if Teresa ever spoke to Joe directly about it, Melissa confirmed she did.
“She said to him, ‘Don’t you ever tell anyone this story ever, ever, ever.’ And he said, ‘Okay.’ And he didn’t and he wouldn’t let me tell it and I didn’t and then it got told,” Melissa explained. “It’s like, you’re constantly making me look like a bad guy. Then I have to defend myself once in a while.”
According to Margaret Josephs, the Gorgas told her not to talk about “pizza gate” because they agreed they didn’t want to make Teresa and Luis look bad. However, according to Teresa, it was she who was protecting Joe.
“I didn’t want my brother to look like sh-t. I wasn’t trying to make my brother look bad in any way,” Teresa explained.
As for what really happened between them, Jennifer Aydin suggested that after Luis invested the large sum of money, he told Joe, who wanted 50% equity, claiming the company was his idea, “You know what, since you didn’t invest, I’m just gonna give you a percentage of the company.”
“And Joe Gorga didn’t like that,” she revealed.
Meanwhile, in their own segment of the RHONJ: After Show, Jen Fessler and Jackie Goldschneider discussed Luis’ wealth or lack thereof.
“Luis is so wealthy, [so maybe it’s] more worthwhile to not cut your soon-to-be-brother-in-law out,” Jen noted.
“Is he so wealthy?” Jackie replied. “I don’t know about that. He hasn’t been working for a long time.”
Jackie then poked fun at the Cartier bracelets Luis bought Teresa’s daughters for Christmas, joking that they were “Schmartier.”
“I mean, the box certainly wasn’t real,” she added.
Looking back at the fallout between the Gorgas and Teresa and Luis, Jackie said things took a turn “out of nowhere.”
“No one understood what the hell went wrong. In like, January of 2021, we were good. And in April, we were not. And in March, I think there was pizza gate,” she recalled.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 13 airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on Bravo.