Joe Giudice Says It Was ‘Painful’ Watching Real Housewives of New Jersey from Prison
Real Housewives of New Jersey viewers may have been fascinated to see what Teresa Giudice‘s life was like while her husband, Joe Giudice, served out his 41-month prison sentence, but the father of four reveals he found it hard to watch the Bravo show from behind bars.
On Monday, a never-before-seen clip from Andy Cohen’s bombshell sit-down with Joe and Teresa was sent to Bravo Insider subscribers, in which Joe opened up about how difficult it was to see his family live out their lives on the reality show without him.
“It was actually painful to watch on television,” Joe, 49, admitted. “It was actually sad.”
Joe then said that one RHONJ episode from March 2016 — which showed the day he first went to prison, leaving his wife Teresa, 47, and their daughters Gia, 18, Gabriella, 15, Milania, 13, and Audriana, 10, behind — was particularly difficult for him to watch.
“I saw the one episode where my daughter was waving through the window while I was leaving to go to Fort Dix [Federal Correctional Institution],” Joe recalled. “And that was gut-wrenching to watch that.”
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Joe would spend the next three years in incarceration, first at Fort Dix and then at FCI Allenwood, a low-security prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
Throughout his time there, he would sometimes tune into RHONJ and — on occasion — Teresa’s appearances on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.
“I did see yous a couple of times [on WWHL],” Joe said in the interview. “When I was in Fort Dix, the first federal prison, there was this one guy Jack [who] loved Bravo. So he always had the Bravo channel on. When I got to the other prison, which was Allenwood, there wasn’t anybody who had that channel on too much. It was only on once in a while so I was able to catch clips here and there, but not as much as the first.”
“I would watch a little bit here and there,” he continued. “I didn’t watch it that much, but I would watch certain things here and there. I more read magazines and stuff like that.”
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Joe was sent to prison for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud after Teresa previously served a little over 11 months in prison for the same crimes. She was released on Dec. 23, 2015.
This past March, Joe was released and transferred to the custody of ICE at the Clinton County Correctional Center in Pennsylvania, where he remained until last month when he moved to Salerno, Italy to await the final ruling in his deportation appeal.
As Teresa explained on Wednesday’s RHONJ premiere, Joe was born in Italy and lived there for a year before his parents relocated to America. Joe never obtained American citizenship and per U.S. law, immigrants can be deported if they are convicted of “a crime of moral turpitude” or an “aggravated felony.”
The deportation ruling was made last October. So far, Joe has appealed twice and has been denied both times. A final ruling is expected this month.
Since his sit-down with Cohen, Joe has joined Instagram, where he’s given fans a glimpse into his life in Italy.
Over the weekend, he reunited with Teresa and their four kids for the first time since his release. The family spent four days together touring parts of Italy, documenting their happy family memories on social media.
Bravo cameras also captured the trip for an upcoming special.
