Teresa Giudice Describes Her First Days in Prison: 'I Was in a Fog'

When Teresa Giudice reported to prison to serve nearly a year for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud last January, she didn't fully know what to expect.

"I never watched Orange is the New Black. I didn't want to know anything. I didn't Google it. The only thing I cared about was whether they had hair color," the reality star, 43, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview in this week's issue. "I was like, 'I'll figure it out when I get there.' "

• For PEOPLE's full coverage of what's going on with Teresa Giudice and her family these days, visit PEOPLE.com/Teresa

Checking in to prison was a demoralizing experience for Giudice, who arrived at Connecticut's Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in the middle of the night wearing a rhinestone emblazoned jacket and leggings. She purposely left her wedding band at home. As with all prisoners entering the jail, she had to submit to a strip search, and do the dreaded "squat and cough."



But Giudice says, through it all, "I was in a fog."

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Inside the jail, she was happily surprised by her accommodations.

"I thought I was going to be in a cell with a toilet, but it was nothing like that," she says, adding that the door to the room – and even to the building, was never locked. "It kind of reminded me of college, with bunk beds – even though the beds were stained with urine and blood. But ultimately, I felt lucky. I was never handcuffed, and I wasn't behind bars."

• For much more from Teresa Giudice, plus an exclusive interview with her husband Joe as he prepares to serve his own prison sentence, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE Magazine, on newsstands Friday

Giudice says she only broke down when it turned out she was not yet permitted to call her children.

"I didn't cry until it turned out I couldn't call my family," she says. "You have to wait until your money [for calls] hits. But I tried to stay in the mind frame of, 'I'm gonna do what I have to do, get it done and then come home.' "

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Shortly into her stay, Giudice began befriending her fellow inmates, but says there was no shortage of drama.

With six women total in her room, "There is no privacy. The drama in there is crazy," she says. "If something happened the whole camp knew. Every morning I would wake up like, 'I can't believe I'm here.' "