14 WTF Moments From Teresa And Joe Giudice's "Watch What Happens Live" Interview

    "There's a container of Fabellini?"

    Kate Aurthur
    by Kate Aurthur

    BuzzFeed News Reporter

    On Oct. 2, Joe and Teresa Giudice of The Real Housewives of New Jersey were sentenced to prison for multiple counts of fraud. Joe got 41 months, and Teresa got 15 months. She will serve first, and will report on Jan. 5.

    Mike Segar / Reuters

    The next day, the couple taped an interview with Andy Cohen for a special two-part Watch What Happens Live!

    Despite having pleaded guilty in March, the Giudices continued to say a number of astounding things about what led them to this point. And about — well, everything else. Let's list them.

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    Andy Cohen's face here is all of our faces.

    1. Getting prison time, Teresa said, "was very unexpected."

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    When Teresa and Joe pleaded guilty in March — to the fraud charges, and, for Joe, to the additional charges of not filing tax returns for years — federal sentencing guidelines dictated they were facing 21 to 27 months and 37 to 46 months, respectively. Teresa's lawyer Henry Klingeman publicly stated then, and again argued in court, that she should get probation. But probation was not the recommended sentence, and it was completely up to the judge.

    2. Given her shock, Cohen asked Teresa whether she thinks she's been in denial. Which everyone thinks she is.

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    "I do need to read things before I sign them," she said. "I do need to understand things before I sign them. I'm a trustworthy person. Sometimes I take what other people say, and I believe them."

    Parsing this: According to the Giudice version of events, Teresa means that she shouldn't be signing things Joe, her husband, gives her. She's right, by the way!

    3. Cohen asked Teresa why she would have accepted an agreement that recommended a prison sentence.

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    She said she hadn't understood that. Cohen pressed her: "Did your lawyer not tell you what that meant?" "I didn't fully understand it," she replied.

    BuzzFeed News emailed Klingeman asking for a comment on this incredible assertion on Teresa's part. He did not respond.

    4. Cohen asked why there were so many omissions of their valuables in the papers they filed to the judge.

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    Especially given how many lawyers and crisis people the Giudices have around them. "That's why I was shocked," Teresa said.

    This line of questioning continued in the second part of the WWHL special. Multiple times, Teresa said she didn't know she had to catalogue all of her valuables. Cohen also asked why they listed their furnishings as worth only $25,000, Teresa began to answer, Joe interrupted her, and she actually got mad at him — "I'm speaking." It was rarity for them, at least on camera.

    5. What did she say to her lawyers after this catastrophe, since it sounds like legal malpractice, if what she says is true?

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    According to Teresa, she didn't know she might go to jail and she didn't know she had to list her valuables (at the risk of infuriating the judge).

    Teresa: "After I left court, I left court. It was done. The judge made her decision. It was done."

    6. Back to the crimes themselves. How, asked Cohen, did this happen? Was Teresa just signing what was given to her?

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    Teresa: "This was a long time ago."

    Cohen: "Joe, when you were handing her documents to sign, did you know what you were handing her to sign?"

    Joe: "Just whatever the bank gave for her to sign."

    Cohen: "But you were taking out false loans."

    Joe: "All right. Whatever. I was taking out false loans."

    Since we still don't know what Joe's (and Teresa's?) thought process was as they used faked documents to get millions of dollars from lenders, this part of the interview may be as much detail as we're ever going to get. Cohen pushed, asking Joe about the documents — fake W-2s and tax returns — that did not appear from out of nowhere. Someone created them, Teresa signed them, and Joe submitted them.

    Joe acted like those documents came from the bank itself. "I would get the paperwork, sign it, and it would be done," he said. Cohen said that was illegal was what Joe had sent to the bank.

    "Yes, well, there was illegal things as far as tax returns and stuff like that," Joe said. "Yes."

    7. According to Teresa, the only one of their children who knows about the prison sentences is Gia, who is 13.

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    Even though they all go to regular school, and Gabriella is 9, and Milania is 8. "They don't know anything," said Teresa.

    Joe seemed to realize this assertion is ridiculous. "I think she knows. She's not stupid, Milania," he said. Cohen asked whether they thought she would hear in school. "No, I don't think so," Teresa said.

    Joe: "Gabriella's gotta know something."

    (Then they said that Milania asked why there were so many people at their house after the sentencing. Instead of telling her the truth, somebody told her it was the four-month mark after Joe's father's death, which is the saddest lie.)

    Where will they tell Gabriella, Milania, and five-year-old Audriana that Teresa is going? "Camp," Joe said. Kiddingly?

    8. Is Teresa worried about being in prison and losing her temper, Cohen asked?

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    Teresa: "I've grown since then."

    Cohen: "Joe, are you worried about her losing her temper in person?"

    Joe: "What if another woman touches you?"

    9. In Part 2 of the interview, Cohen asked Joe whether he fears being deported.

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    Deportation proceedings, should they happen, would begin after he has served his sentence. Given that Joe is now a convicted felon, and never became a United States citizen, it's actually likely he will be deported (unless the laws change in the next few years). "I'm going to worry about that when the time comes," said Joe. Might they be living in Italy in five years, Cohen asked? "That's not such a bad thing," Joe answered. "It's in God's hands," Teresa concluded.

    10. Is Joe an alcoholic? His lawyer said so in court while asking for leniency.

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    "Before you started this Real Housewives stuff, I used to drink only on the weekends," he said to Teresa. "Now I drink every day." How much, Cohen asked? "Two, three bottles, four bottles easily — you know, with another person." And, "One bottle is like sucking a bottle of milk."

    That does sound bad.

    "I don't have a problem to where all I think about is drinking."

    Oh.

    11. Cohen reminded Joe that he has another court date — and possibly more prison time coming his way — on Oct. 15.

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    Remember when this was their big problem? After getting a DUI, and having his driver's license suspended, Joe allegedly used his brother’s identification to get a new license. This charge was hanging over their heads when they were indicted in July of last year for the federal fraud charges. The feds go first, so this case was pushed. Teresa urged Joe not to respond to Cohen's questions about this case, and he didn't.

    12. Teresa didn't want her brother, Joe Gorga, also of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, to come to court.

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    Because she didn't want anyone there. He called her crying hysterically the night of the verdict, she said. (Which is easy to picture, actually.) She did text him at 3 a.m. to make sure that he will see their parents — especially their ailing father — all the time while she's in prison.

    (She also heard from Jacqueline Laurita, another castmate and her former close friend. But she hadn't read it. "I get so many text-es," said Teresa.)

    13. Teresa's businesses are all doing terribly since their legal problems began in earnest.

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    Teresa: "I'm working like everybody else is working." But it's not going well. Joe has gone back to "rental" businesses, though this part was hazy. Does he think, Cohen asked, that it may be hard going forward, given his conviction and future imprisonment? Joe didn't seem to understand the question. "I'm going to make sure everything is crossed, and everything is dotted, the right way. I just have to do a little more work now."

    14. No, Teresa is not pregnant.

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    Whew.

    When Cohen asked whether Teresa resents Joe, she said she doesn't. "Since yesterday, he's been feeling bad, and keeps coming up to me and hugging me."

    Cohen asked Joe whether he feels guilty — and how it all feels in general. "Obviously, not good." Did he have anything to say to Teresa? "I just want to apologize for getting you into this mess," he said. And: "If I could take it all back, I would."

    She said "I love you," and implored him — for the millionth time during the interview — to take care of their daughters while she's in prison.

    This season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey has not been doing well — until the Giudices' sentencing, that is, when Sunday's episode drew a season-high 2.3 million viewers.

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