REPORT Teresa Giudice’s diamond ring gift to daughter Gia not a family heirloom

Sunday’s episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey featured a touching family moment between Joe and Teresa Giudice and their teen daughter Gia in which Teresa gives Gia a huge diamond ring that once belonged to her mother. “This is something that was mommy’s and [it has] sentimental value because my mom gave it to me,” Teresa tells her eldest daughter. “And now, I saved it for you.” Papa Joe then points out, “Those diamonds are bigger than you whole hand, Gia.”

Here is the ring and Gia’s hand for comparison:

And here’s the clip:

Teresa took to her Bravo blog and talked more about the ring and its significance:

Gia’s gift was a pave ring that my mother gave me when I was a teenager. I’ve been saving it for her. It’s too big for her to wear now, but she’s mature enough to understand how much it means. I don’t think there’s any better present than something passed down from your mama, no matter what it is.

Well, as I’m sure you were able to ascertain from the title of this post, Teresa may have fudged the story a bit for the cameras. “The diamond ring had been given to Teresa about a year ago by a jeweler in New Jersey,” a source reveals to Radar Online. “Teresa wanted to give Gia the ring on camera to give publicity to the jeweler.”

The source then adds, “Teresa’s mother never had the ring for any extended period of time. It was all done for the show, and it’s now back in Teresa’s possession.”

I’m just speculating here, but I wonder if the “source” is in fact the jeweler, which didn’t really get ANY publicity considering Teresa’s story that it was a family heirloom! I just hope that if it was indeed a gift from last year that Teresa reported it on her taxes.

Well, even if the ring wasn’t a real family heirloom, at least Gia got some real “do as I do, not as I say” fatherly advice from Papa Joe G. “You’re like a role model too,” Joe says in reference to Gia being an older sister, “so you better always be good and never listen to people that want to do crazy stupid things. I don’t want you to go off track, you know what I mean?”

Good advice Joe.