Teresa Giudice and Joe are broke; owe $11 million
And we all thought the Housewives in Atlanta and OC were broke!
For two seasons we’ve all ogled Teresa and Joe Giudice’s flagrant opulence, as they bought designer clothes for their diva children, drove around a Cadillac Escalade, slapped down gobs of money for Gia’s birthday, moved into a McCastle of onyx and marble in Towaco, N.J, got breast implants, and spoke of getting Joe “snipped.”
Teresa even threw $120,000 cash on camera for some gaudy furniture in the first season of Real Housewives of New Jersey. Everyone gasped and thought there may be mafia ties or money running under the table somewhere, which turns out to be more what they’d rather have us think than the truth. There may be money running under the table somewhere (in recent bankruptcy papers they reported receiving $120,000 from “family assistance”), but it’s probably no where near enough to cover their massive $11 million dollar debt! It gets worse, they claim that in addition to the “family assistance” Joe (who works at G&G Stucco and Stone Specialists) and Teresa combined only pulled in $79,000 last year (including Bravo money)! Teresa reported got a raise from Bravo this year, and her book about gossip and staying thin while eating Italian food is a bestseller, and for most that could mean a degree of financial stability, but not when you owe $11 million!
If all this is true, these people are insane. Of course, six years ago everyone was living in $11 million debt while bringing in $2-a-month, but this is post Great Recession! We’ve all wised up a little. Somebody needs to check their TVs and make sure they’re not watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD and thinking it’s still 2003.
Real Housewives of OC vet Vicki Gunvalson is needed STAT for some emergency personal finance lessons. She probably would only accept cash, but she’d give the Giudices the best arithmetic lesson they’ve ever had. The above picture is what Teresa will look like when she figures out that you can’t just keep spending money you don’t have. The look is a mixture of disbelief, rage, confusion, and heartbreak. A couple tables will flip, but Vicki will walk about of their with cash in her pockets, and Teresa and Juicy Joe will walk straight to the poor house.
Here’s the debt details The NY Post gleaned from the bankruptcy filings (note: Joe’s $5.8 mill investment debts are owed to former business partners):
What the Giudices make a year:
$79,000 (plus $120,000 in “assistance” from family members)
What they owe: $10,853,648.04
Credit Cards
$104,000
including $20,000 to Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom
$1,280 monthly payment for Cadillac Escalade
Mortgages
$2.6M
for eight mortgages on three homes (two have been handed back to lenders)
$5.8M Joe’s business investments
$85,600 Home repairs
$12,000 Fertility treatments
$2,300 Phone bill
UPDATE June 7, 2010: Although Dina Manzo publicly claimed that the Post reports were false, Teresa admitted to People that they filed for bankruptcy to make a “fresh start” after Joe’s speculative real estate deals went bust:
While this is a personal matter, I realize that certain aspects of my private life will always be subject to scrutiny and distortion,” Giudice says in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE. “What is true is that due to the economy, most of my husband’s real estate ventures failed despite his hard work and effort. As a result, we looked to the Bankruptcy Court for a ‘fresh start.’”
The Chapter 7 bankruptcy papers were filed in Newark, NJ October 2009.
