Why Siggy Flicker Struggled to Accept Margaret Josephs' Apology After Milan Quarrel
Margaret Josephs apologized to Real Housewives of New Jersey rival Siggy Flicker on Wednesday’s all-new episode for the controversial remark she made regarding Adolph Hitler. But Flicker wasn’t necessarily quick to accept her apology.
The two Jersey Housewives have been going back and forth all season, their bitter battles boiling over during a group trip to Milan where Flicker — the only Jewish New Jersey Housewife — accused Josephs of being anti-Semitic.
Josephs had, in a past argument, attempted to point out that Flicker was being short-sighted in her desire to remain impartial in the fight between POSCHE fashion show maven Kim DePaola and Teresa Giudice when she made the Hitler comment. “But Siggy, Hitler would have not killed me. Does that make him a good person?” Josephs said, responding to Flicker’s argument that DePaola, who had spread rumors about Giudice’s marriage, hadn’t treated Flicker poorly.
Hitler’s name was a trigger for Flicker, whose father (Dr. Mordecai Paldiel) is Holocaust survivor. “I don’t know how to explain myself to you guys. To me it’s insensitive,” she told Melissa Gorga and Danielle Staub Wednesday night, crying. “From the time I was a young girl, the Holocaust is part of who I am. I gave her an opportunity to say, ‘Hey maybe that was in poor taste …’ In life, there’s just certain references that cannot be made.”
“I have my reasons to feel the way I do, and Hitler’s an ugly word for me,” she said later during a cast dinner. “It’s just a trigger word for me, that’s it.”
Hearing Josephs explanation, Josephs worked to make amends. “I don’t want to fight or anything, I just want to say to Siggy, I would never know that would hurt you to the core and that wasn’t my intention,” Josephs said, also telling audiences she would never say it again. “Hitler’s a trigger word and if I knew that, I would have never even said it. I would never want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Flicker stayed silent though — a choice that left her fellow castmates confused. “Here’s Margaret trying to be sincere and trying to have a conversation, but I feel like Siggy doesn’t even want to hear it,” Giudice confessed. “I feel like she has it in her head, ‘Go f— yourself. I don’t care what you say, I’m not making up with you.’ ”
In Flicker’s defense, she said she needed some time to process what Margaret was saying. “You just don’t get over a comment like that within 24 hours,” Flicker said. “I’m emotionally drained and I’m concentrating on getting through a meal like I promised Danielle and Melissa and that’s what I’m sticking to.”
While she took the time to get there, Josephs’ friends came to her defense. “[Margaret] says things very sharply and you get very offended quickly. But she does not have a hate,” Gorga told Flicker. “She is not anti-Semitic.”
“I think Margaret says snarky comments to everyone, it’s just the way she speaks,” added Giudice. “But I don’t think she realizes how sensitive you are.”
Taking them all in, Flicker appeared ready to finally talk calmly with Josephs at the cast’s final dinner in Milan. But by that point, Josephs was looking for more than for Flicker to just accept her apology. “To say someone’s anti-Semitic, that’s like calling someone racist,” she shared. “She aligned me with a hate group. I don’t need her apology, but I need her to acknowledge that I’m not anti-Semitic for everyone to hear because that is disgusting.”
“Saying someone’s anti-Semitic could ruin every relationship I have,” Josephs told Flicker. “My relationships, separate from this group, are only with Jewish people. … That’s relationship-ending, career-ending — everything I value in my life. It was so scathing and hurtful. Hitler’s name doesn’t ruin people’s lives.”
So did Josephs get what she wanted? By all accounts, yes.
“Last night you gave me a heartfelt apology that was sincere and I thank you for that. I needed time to process that. I’m still upset. I don’t think anybody should ever reference Hitler,” Flicker said. “I want to believe with all my heart and soul that you are not anti-Semitic. Where I came up with that was not out of the sky. All these moments of me feeling attacked by Margaret and then the Hitler statement, I said, ‘Well then maybe you’re just anti-Semitic.’ That’s where it came from. But if I hurt your feelings, I apologize for that.”
“I said it in the heat of the moment, but I don’t think that you’re anti-Semitic,” Flicker added. “I don’t believe that Margaret is anti-Semitic, I believe that Margaret is anti-Siggy. ‘Cause from the moment that I introduced you, it’s like taking someone to a wedding and you deserted me at cocktail hour. That’s what you did. You didn’t dignify me in Boca and the Soggy Flicker statement. It’s in your delivery Margaret.”
By episode’s end, everyone appeared happy that Flicker and Josephs were co-existing calmly. But judging from the war of words they’ve been exchanging on Twitter and the pending RHONJ reunion, this fight is far from over.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Wednesdays (9 p.m. ET) on Bravo.
