Joe Gorga, 42, the brother of Teresa Giudice, 50, and his wife Melissa Gorga, 43, who used to be best friends with Teresa, did not attend Teresa’s Aug. 6 nuptials to Luis Ruelas, 46, and they have now officially spoken out about the matter. While the pair were invited to the wedding, Joe and Melissa revealed on the Aug. 11 episode of Melissa’s On Display podcast that there is a “laundry list” of reasons that kept them from Teresa’s big day, per Us Weekly. They said their decision to skip the wedding, which was held in East Brunswick, N.J., stemmed from “something that went down” during the filming of the Season 12 reunion of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, something that they more or less completely blamed Teresa for. “Those exact details, I obviously cannot say today,” Melissa noted. “Anything that we have filmed is something that I am not able to talk about.”
Melissa then confirmed there was “drama” that was a bit too much for her liking. “I am not going to sit here and say that there wasn’t drama, that it wasn’t crazy. Yes, there was a little aggression from certain people that could have been a little scary,” she recalled. “There definitely were moments.” She said that she and Joe, and apparently “everyone in the room”, agreed it would be “very strange” to experience whatever happened on set and then attend the wedding like nothing happened.
Joe and Melissa alluded to Teresa’s apparent 13-year grudge against them for joining The Real Housewives of New Jersey as being the underlying issue that drove a wedge between the threesome. “People are saying, ‘Oh, because you guys are on this reality show, you know, get off the show. It affects you and your family.’ I disagree with that,” Joe explained. “I know we’re on a reality show, but if you’re pure and you’re honest and you go in with open arms, why do you have to fight? Why are we fighting? Why is this going on? Is there a jealousy thing going on? Not with us. We’re not jealous.” Melissa added, “What’s sad is that it’s still going on and if we took that opportunity, it should be OK. … You’re so angry and you hold this anger for 13 years. It’s insane.”
Joe also slammed his sister for “barely” wanting his family at her nuptials to begin with. “[Skipping the wedding] was one of the hardest days of my life. It was bad. But listen, let’s go back to the reunion. She did this. You know, this was all on her. This is what she really wanted,” he theorized. “She didn’t want you in the wedding. She didn’t want any of my children in the wedding. She barely wanted me. I was asked after all this information went out to be in a wedding. And that’s what saddens me. … When I left that reunion, I looked at you in a car and I was like, ‘Wow, she hates us.’ I’ve never seen her like this.” He said that Melissa “immediately” sent a message to Teresa after the apparent drama went down at the reunion and she was left with no response.
Finally, Joe and Melissa, who tied the knot in 2004, said they know several things about Luis that rubbed them the wrong way, which would also make it odd for them to watch him marry Teresa. “We covered up a lot of things,” Melissa divulged. “A lot of things we know and now I’m sitting back — I’m not gonna lie — second-guessing, like, why?”
Joe and Melissa previously spoke out about the drama that went down at the reunion in pointed social media posts about family the night before Teresa’s wedding. “Blood doesn’t make you family,” Joe wrote on his Instagram Story. Melissa also shared a video from a family gathering and wrote, “God blessed me with amazing family,” over it.
In May, Melissa opened up about her fractured relationship with Teresa and admitted she feels “no guilt” over it because she tried everything she could to make things work. “It’s OK to say that we don’t have the best relationship and I don’t feel guilty saying that because I tried really hard and know that I tried hard — for my in-laws and for Joe,” she said while on the Betches’ Mention It All podcast. She later added, “I just feel like I tried and I’m good.”