Credit: JOHN NACION/startraksphoto, Bravo
Melissa Gorga and Teresa Giudice shared an emotional moment with one another during last week’s episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey as the cast drew murals of Teresa’s life. And after the episode aired, they looked back on their reactions.
After Melissa drew the Gorga family in her picture and shared a hug with Teresa, prompting Teresa to reconsider her wedding party, the ladies reflected on their feelings as their co-stars weighed in with Jennifer Fessler and Margaret Josephs admitting they were just as emotional.
“We all started crying. It’s so heartbreaking and everybody got caught up in that moment,” Jennifer said on the April 25 episode of the RHONJ: After Show.
“I could cry thinking about it now,” Margaret agreed. “Melissa and I talk about it now, to this day, how emotional that [moment] was.”
According to Margaret, she believes that despite Melissa and Teresa’s ups and downs, Melissa and husband Joe Gorga have been there for Teresa.
“Anyone can say what they want. Teresa has been through hardship. Her life has come so far. She’s turned it around [and] Melissa has been there to see all those memories,” she stated. “There are very few people in Teresa’s life who have lived all this with her. At the end of the day, this is all you have. These are the people who’ve lived this with you.”
Margaret believes that because Melissa and Joe have gone through so much with Teresa, she should want to mend their broken relationship.
“People don’t give Melissa enough credit that she is very sensitive and emotional,” she explained. “I think sometimes Melissa puts a block up. People have said, ‘Oh, she’s cold.’ She’s not cold. Teresa does come across warmer to people sometimes, on the outside, but Melissa is very warm.”
After Rachel Fuda admitted the energy amid the mural scene was “heavy” and felt “funeral-like,” Melissa agreed that there was not a “celebratory” tone.
“It felt like we were saying goodbye and you see like, I guess my true feelings came out. I started crying because I was like, emotional,” she recalled.
But as Jackie Goldschneider pointed out, Melissa’s tears weren’t for herself.
“She wasn’t crying for her own pain. She was crying for Joe’s pain cuz she knows how much it hurts Joe,” Jackie explained. “I think Melissa would be fine living forever without Teresa. She’s not that invested. I think that she’s just so hurt for Joe.”
“I knew also I that moment,” Jackie continued, “as much as Melissa was crying and hugging Teresa that in her head was like, ‘I have to go home and tell my daughter that her aunt said something about her on the show.’ I knew it wasn’t like a pure moment.”
And although Melissa didn’t mention daughter Antonia Gorga in her RHONJ: After Show segment, she did admit that when it came to her tears, they were for her spouse.
“I got so emotional that that family is like broken and that Joe doesn’t have that family anymore, any of them, basically,” she shared. “Everything I do with Teresa I kinda feel like, ‘Where’s Joe?’ Because it’s like, her and I don’t have that, ‘Come here!’ She never reeled me in that way so I always just look for Joe because it’s all about Joe for me.”
In her own segment, Teresa described the mural scene as “overwhelming.”
“I don’t like to be put on the spot and like, I don’t like attention. So it really meant a lot,” she said. “I got emotional about that because I did remember like, at one point, it was just the four of us and we were so tight, and unfortunately it’s not like that anymore.”
Teresa then took aim at Melissa and Joe’s marriage, suggesting that the couple argues about their family.
“I don’t know what goes through [Melissa’s] head. That’s the thing. I don’t know her,” she said. “But I’m sure my brother and her have had arguments regarding the family. I’m sure they have.”
Despite their many challenges, Melissa suggested that when she and Teresa shared their emotional moment during the mural scene, she did have hope for a future reconciliation.
“I’ve been through a lot with Teresa and just the fact that we’re not in a good place and she’s about to get married and maybe change her life to go a different route maybe just struck me in that moment,” she reasoned. “I don’t know, I would think she’d remember the people who were there the whole time.”
RHONJ Live Viewing – This is also the live viewing thread for tonight’s new episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 13. Please share your thoughts below as the episode airs at 9/8c on Bravo.