Credit: Bravo
A lot of the drama on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island has revolved around Rulla Pontarelli‘s husband, Brian Pontarelli, and his extramarital affair.
While Rulla and Brian have copped to Brian cheating on her, they both have insisted it’s in the past and over. Many of the other women, however, have voiced concerns to Rulla that it’s still going on, citing evidence and things they’ve heard.
On the most recent episode of RHORI, which aired April 26, Jo-Ellen Tiberi sat down with Rulla and told her she thinks Brian is still visiting his mistress on mornings he claims to be going to the gym. As evidence, she showed Rulla a text thread between Brian and the mistress. Rulla insisted the texts were made up.
In an interview with Us Weekly, Rulla opened up about what’s going on with Brian.
“Brian is the person who I’ve known my entire life. For any mistakes or misjudgements he’s made, I can honestly tell everyone that he has more than repented his sins,” Rulla told Us Weekly. “I think everyone will see that.
“For people who might say, ‘Oh, my God, after what he did, I can’t believe she’s with him or taking him back and she doesn’t need him,’ I feel like for a woman with values, it actually makes you a stronger person.”
As the most recent RHORI episode progressed, Jo-Ellen ended up showing Rulla a picture of the mistress she’d shared on her Instagram Story. It showed her and Brian together in his car, even though they supposedly had stopped fooling around.
“People have lapses of judgment, a lot of people out there have lapses of judgment, or their husbands or their wives have, but it just never came to light, or they never admitted it,” Rulla insisted. “There’s a lot of that stuff that goes on that we don’t know about, or that’s never admitted. In this case, certain things were brought to light, and I’ve navigated them as best as possible.”
“I truly take things day by day,” she added. “I’m on top of things, let’s put it that way, so Jo-Ellen doesn’t need to be.”
Earlier this month, Rulla spoke to Us Weekly to insist she didn’t think her marriage would be a massive topic on the show.
“I know that if you ask anyone in Rhode Island, those people who actually know maybe Jo-Ellen in her past and her practices and her character, I think they would agree that she’s not the most credible, not the most authentic source,” Rulla shared at the time. “When she just continued to kind of push harder and bring more to the group and bring more to the state and the city that she lives in, I just thought to myself, ‘What is her objective here?'”