Teresa Giudice and Joe Gorga butted heads on Wednesday’s episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, in what looks to be the beginning of a season-long battle.
The siblings have had a history of arguments on the hit Bravo show dating back to season 3, when Joe’s wife Melissa Gorga joined as a full-time Housewife.
At the height of it, the family feud caused chaos at Christenings and a physical brawl involving Joe Giudice, Teresa’s husband. But things have settled over the last few years, as all involved vowed to make peace with one another in the wake of Teresa’s return from her 11-month prison sentence for bank, mail, wire, and bankruptcy fraud back in December 2015.
So why the new bout of tension? It all stems from their father Giacinto Gorga, who has been especially lonely after the death of his wife and has been telling Teresa that Joe hasn’t had time for him.
“My brother used to be around more when my mom first passed away, and I’m really nervous to say anything to him because when I brought this up in the past, it got ugly,” Teresa explained of the situation. “My brother and I have been doing really well for a while now, and I definitely don’t want history to repeat itself. Life is short. I just don’t want my brother to have any regrets.”
While her intentions were good, Teresa’s delivery left a little to be desired. She brought up her concerns during Easter dinner, as the entire family — and all their combined seven kids — sat down with Giacinto for dinner.
Earlier in the evening, Giacinto had confronted Joe and Melissa himself, saying, “You never call me no more! F– you!”
Joe had laughed off his father’s frustrations, explaining that he was busy with work, but Teresa kept it going. “Are you going to be around more for this one? He wants you around more,” she said. “The kid that’s not around the most, that’s the kid you always want.”
Melissa was thrown by the question. “Who brings up a super sensitive, going-to-cause-a-problem conversation on Easter Sunday? Especially in front of my father-in-law, who is super upset as it is,” she wondered. “This is definitely not the day, the time, the place. Like, your timing sucks.”
“Not on Easter,” Melissa added. “This conversation gets my skin crawling because I get instant flashbacks of the pain that Joe went through years ago over conversations that were similar. I know my husband. When you push him and you constantly say the same thing to him over and over again, I know he’s going to explode. Joe is a ticking time bomb. It’s going to happen.”
She didn’t even get a chance to tell Teresa that, though, because Joe confronted his sister about it directly.
“You gotta cut that out,” he told Teresa. “You always bring that up in front of Daddy. ‘Oh you work too much, you’re not around.’ Listen to me, if I was sitting in a bar all day, if I was sitting in restaurants, that’s a different story. But what am I going to do? When you put in 15 hours a day, hard work? I’m exhausted.”
“You know my life. You know the business, it’s crazy. I work hard core, all day, every day, nonstop. Unbelievable stresses,” Joe added. “My business takes all my freakin time. Is he going to pay my bills? No one pays my bills. What am I going to do, just give it all up?”
Teresa stood up for herself. “I’m just saying, he bitches to me all the time,” she said of her dad. “I got to hear him! ‘Your brother don’t call me. It’s been five days.’ “
“Since I’ve lost my mom, holidays are more emotional. I’m just trying to make the holiday as best as I can for my dad. I just want to make him happy. He needs that,” she said. “Before I went away, I spent a lot of time with my mom. And right now all I can think about is how when I came home, I wished I spent more time with my mom. So it’s frustrating that my brother makes the effort to see my dad just on a holiday.”
RELATED VIDEO: “I Do What I Want!”: The Real Reason Why Teresa Giudice Went from Flipping Tables to Pumping Iron
In the end, Teresa’s 17-year-old daughter Gia Giudice put everything into perspective
“It’s not fair,” she told her uncle Joe. “We get it so much from Nonno, you don’t even know. I know you have work, trust me, I know. But if you don’t call him for a day, he says something. … At least just try, in a week, just one designated day for Nonno.”
Joe remained defiant (“I work so I can’t be punished for that”), though Teresa got in the last word. “I don’t give a s—,” she told him. “You have to make time. In life, that’s how it is. Capeesh?”
And while their battle looked to be done, there were bigger issues brewing. “Teresa was always like this when we were kids,” Joe complained in his confessional. “When it came to me, she would rat me out. Why are you still doing this? It’s going to cause a big problem again, which we don’t need.”
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Wednesdays (9 p.m. ET) on Bravo.
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