The rumors and tabloid reports that Joe Giudice was unfaithful to now-estranged wife Teresa Giudice have been out there for years. But now, after long denying and ignoring the claims, Teresa is finally admitting that she believes Joe did cheat on her during their 20-year marriage.
She got real about Joe's alleged infidelity on the Feb. 12 episode of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," which was filmed in 2019 while Joe was still in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention following a three-year federal prison term. (Joe was released from ICE in October and flew to his native Italy to await news of his deportation appeal.)
During a weekend getaway to the Jersey Shore with the cast of her Bravo show, Teresa — who announced her separation from Joe in December 2019 — said she doesn't think Joe was as good to her as she was to him during their marriage. "There was rumors out there," she said, as reported by TooFab. When Margaret Josephs' husband, Joe Benigno, asked Teresa, "You think he ever fooled around behind your back?" Teresa said she did.
"Listen, he had a separate cell phone with one girl," Teresa said. "I found it! It was his ex-girlfriend's sister. He said she was going through her divorce. He was helping her, trying to sell her house." Teresa explained it was a tough situation to be in. "Like, I quit my job. [Our eldest daughter] Gia was 3 [at the time]. And I was like, 'What am I gonna do?' I should've left then, right? I didn't because he denied it to me. I believed him," she said.
Teresa' brother, Joe Gorga, asked her what she believes now. "Today, do you believe he cheated on you?" he inquired. She responded, "Yeah, now I do!"
Teresa explained herself to her castmates. "I'm just saying, sometimes you're blind." Brother Joe — who on the previous week's "RHONJ" episode told Teresa, "I never really thought you [and your husband Joe] had a good relationship. I just didn't see him treating you the way you should've been treated" — then told her, "Listen, alls I'm saying — you're looking at phones and you gotta worry about that — that's not marriage."
In a later confessional, Teresa further opened up. "It took a long time, and it still is really hard for me to admit, but I owe it to myself to open my eyes to it," she said of her suspicions about Joe's infidelity.
Sister-in-law Melissa Gorga was even more direct in a confessional of her own: "Listen, I don't think it's news to anybody's ears that Joe was cheating on Teresa," she said. "But the news here is that Teresa's finally admitting it."
Teresa also admitted to her castmates that she has "a lot of resentment" toward ex Joe and lamented, "I was like the perfect, perfect f—ing wife!"
The next morning, Teresa said she felt bad about revealing things about Joe. "Like, my daughters adore their dad," she said. But castmate Dolores Catania wasn't having it. "That's testament to you, so you know, because with all you know and all you've been through, you've never bad-mouthed their father. All f—ing day long, lawyers, lawyers, money, money. You never said no once for him," Dolores said.
Teresa agreed. "No, and I guess I have resentment for that too," she said. "It's like, I should be so much further in life. All my business. I built up a lot! And then everything came crashing down 'cause of the legal stuff. I'll be honest with you, I stress about money all the time."