Teresa Giudice opened up about the pay she received for the debut season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey on Wednesday’s episode of her new podcast.
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After welcoming her former co-stars Jacqueline Laurita, 54, and Kim DePaola, 63, to her show, Teresa, 52, addressed a number of RHONJ topics, including the claims made against her husband Luis Ruelas, 50, her daughter Milania Giudice‘s recent car accident, and her family feud with Joe and Melissa Gorga, 45, while also detailing her season one salary.
“It was very low,” Jacqueline noted on the June 19 episode of Turning the Tables as both she and Teresa confirmed their pay was over $20,000.
“[But it was] not that much higher,” Teresa clarified. “I remember that first year was over $10,000 and then like, the clothes we bought… It’s like, what [I] made, I spent. So it was not that much. [Joe Giudice]’s like, ‘You didn’t even make any money.’”
According to Jacqueline, she and her castmates “got smart” before season two began after figuring out that they were “supposed to be making so much more.”
“[We] got a lot more the second season,” she revealed.
While Teresa said she signed on to do the show “for fun,” the past few seasons have been far from that for her and her husband, who will be joining her on an upcoming episode of her podcast.
“The past two seasons, it was hard for [Luis] especially,” she stated. “[And it was] my family that did that to him so I feel bad. But this season, I think everyone’s gonna see what really was happening, that people were putting lies out there.”
Moving on to daughter Milania and her car accident, Teresa admitted her 18-year-old daughter is “so sad.”
“I just got her a brand-new [$60,000 Mercedes-Benz]. She only had it for a month and the car, the other guy ran a stop sign and she’s so upset but I’m like, ‘Listen. It’s okay. Things happen in life. We can’t be upset over it. We’ve got to turn it into a positive,’” Teresa reasoned. “She’s going to college in two months and I’m like, ‘It’s okay, I’ll take you wherever you want to go. As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.’”
Looking back at her upbringing, Teresa said she came from a “tight-knit Italian family.”
“I don’t know what happened now. No, I’m kidding. But things changed when different blood came in,” she continued, seemingly giving a nod to Melissa marrying her little brother.
Teresa also said that before she was born, her mother suffered miscarriages. Then, shortly after her mom conceived her, she and her dad moved from Italy to the United States as immigrants.
Although Teresa spoke highly of her childhood, she admitted that her parents didn’t tell her they loved her until she was an adult.
“I’m so into the ‘I love you thing’ because I want my kids to know how much I love them and vice versa. Because growing up, my parents never told me they loved me. I guess it was an old-school Italian thing,” she suspected. “So when I had kids, I just wanted them to always know how much I love them. We’re always like that. The first time my parents told me they loved me was when Gia started saying it to them. My kids changed my parents.”
Also, on the podcast, Teresa and Jacqueline revealed they both suffer from social anxiety due to their roles on RHONJ.
“I was very extroverted and liked to go out a lot until the show, and then I became so introverted and so like, I had social anxiety after I did the show and I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything,” Jacqueline shared. “I literally avoided going out. It was really bad until I moved [to California]. Now we go out all the time … [But] when you go out you feel like you’re in a fishbowl and everyone’s staring at you. It’s very uncomfortable.”
As for Teresa, she said, “That’s how I feel too .. You have to worry about someone taking a picture of you … taking an awful picture of you. Concerts, I get anxiety. I like to be in the suite just because it’s with a lot of people.”
