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Teresa Giudice never thought she would go to jail.
Years after spending 11 months behind bars for bankruptcy, mail, wire, and bank fraud, and after her former husband, Joe Giudice, endured a 41-month sentence before being deported, the 54-year-old Real Housewives of New Jersey star is reflecting on her legal drama, her reconciliation with the Gorgas, and the ongoing attacks her current husband, Luis Ruelas, 51, has faced on the show.
“I’m always a mom first. I always want to protect my children over anything. At first I was like, ‘Let’s do this,’ because I really didn’t understand what my ex-husband had done. I wanted to go to trial and fight it and go through whatever we had to do. I was like, ‘I guess because I’m on TV, let’s just go through the process,’” Teresa explained to The Hollywood Reporter on August 4 of her initial thoughts on the fraud investigation against her and Joe.
She added, “I really never in a million years thought I would go to jail. If you said to me, ‘I’ll give you $40 million right now, are you going to go to jail?’ I’d be like, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I thought I just had to go through the process and then everything would be fine.”
As RHONJ fans will recall, Teresa’s legal drama was featured throughout season six in 2014. And after she received her sentencing and entered prison, the series was temporarily paused before resuming on the day of her release.
“Being a celebrity made me go to jail. They made an example,” Teresa continued. “I know I didn’t do anything. I know I wasn’t a criminal. I went to a closing. That’s all I did … I put my John Hancock on that dotted line, and I went to jail because of that. That’s the reason why. My story will never change.”
According to Teresa, she comes from a small town, where “everybody knows everybody,” and where “everyone knew [she] had nothing to do with [her] husband’s business.”
“I stayed home, watched the kids. I cooked. I did laundry. I was a real housewife,” she clarified. “It had nothing to do with my husband’s finances. And that’s why I thought it was a joke. I was like, ‘Because I’m on TV, I have to go through this.’ But I was like, ‘I’m not going to go to jail. I didn’t do anything.’”
Before opening up about the matter on the upcoming season of The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th, Teresa spoke of her reunion with Melissa Gorga, 47, and Joe Gorga, 51, noting that she was “happy” to be in a better place.
“I would never want to be on a TV show with my family, but it happened. We fought on the show for a while. A lot of people could relate to what they were seeing me go through. But now I’m so happy to say that we have made up. I’m happy about that,” she stated.
At another point in her interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Teresa said she felt Luis should be off-limits to her RHONJ co-stars.
“I feel like your spouses should be off-limits. When I got married, he was innocent to this. I had all these people who I just met attack my husband, and he didn’t sign up for this,” she reasoned.
Then, after Luann de Lesseps, 61, pointed out that he did go on the show, thus making himself “fair game,” Teresa suggested he didn’t know what he was in for.
“He did not know that he was going to get attacked by my cast members and my family members. My brother even attacked him! That was so heart-wrenching for me,” she fired back.
The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th premieres on Sunday, August 9, at 9/8c on Bravo.