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The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Melissa Gorga opened up about whether she still believes Teresa Giudice was behind the infamous strippergate scandal now that the two have mended their contentious relationship.
Melissa appeared alongside her husband, Joe Gorga, on their niece Gia Giudice‘s podcast.
“Do you really feel that my mom was behind that, looking back on it now?” Gia asked her aunt on Casual Chaos. “Or do you feel that it was Kim D and other people that just put her in an awful situation?”
Gia also noted she thinks there was a “pattern” on the show where Teresa didn’t know what was going on, but was around people who were causing issues for her family.
“Listen, I think it was very obvious that not your mom herself didn’t have this lightbulb come up in her head, but the group that she was with at the time, Kim D, whoever she somehow found, this guy that used to work at the strip club, right?” Melissa began. “She gets herself into these situations where she doesn’t even realize how it’s going to look after, and when it gets said, I don’t think that she’s sitting there like, ‘Oh, today is the day that I’m bringing her down.'”
Melissa also noted it would “happen a lot in those seasons,” and she would tell Teresa it “didn’t look good” that she was with people who were saying things about her.
“It’s like even though she’s not the one saying it or not starting, it’s the people surrounding,” Gia added.
Melissa said that “moving forward,” Teresa needed to “get out of the room” or call her.
“We need to communicate more, where I think back in the day we were both still just mad at things,” she elaborated. “I think once you get older and time teaches you, if you’re bringing someone down, it doesn’t make you win. And I think everyone on the show is realizing that. The more you try to drag people down, you’re not gonna win. It’s gonna make you look worse. So I think it takes time for all of us to realize that it doesn’t work.”
Melissa also insisted Teresa was “always” in a situation where she was “with” people who wanted to come for her.
“And then it didn’t help with Jen Aydin, because I felt like she always was coming this way,” Melissa added.
Gia also revealed she feels “outsiders” created “so much turmoil” on Teresa and Melissa’s relationship.
“People were so obsessed with us arguing that they would actually help the argument,” Melissa noted. “The difference is your mom, and she’ll admit this… she’s… influenced more… so that’s why she would get herself into trouble more.”
Aside from talking about strippergate, other topics were discussed, including how, when Gia was a little girl, she once made Melissa cry due to something she had said.
Melissa and Joe also addressed the turning point for their family “going bad,” to which Gia claimed it was “hard” for her and her siblings to register what was going on at that time due to them being young.
Gia also asked her aunt and uncle if they felt that, if it weren’t for the show, the family feuds wouldn’t have happened. Both Joe and Melissa seemed to indicate there would have still been issues, as Joe noted there was “turmoil” between the family.
“Maybe, maybe not, maybe the show did escalate it a little bit more because we are on national TV,” Joe reflected.
Gia also insisted that, aside from the explosive christening of Joe and Melissa’s son, a lot of the “meaningless fights” were “instigated by a lot of people.”
Although Joe and Melissa were at war with Teresa for years, they finally mended fences at the end of 2025 and brought their families back together. To date, they remain in a good place.