Gia Giudice opened up about her family’s ongoing feud with Joe and Melissa Gorga on her podcast on Monday.
As she also offered a “sad” update on her relationships with Joe, 50, and Melissa’s kids, her cousins, revealed if she lives with her boyfriend, Christian Carmichael, and dished on how she’s similar to mom Teresa Giudice, 53, the 24-year-old Real Housewives of New Jersey star detailed the show’s impact on her family, looked back on becoming more vocal on the series, and more.
“It’s the jealousy, the hurt, the competition, the money, everything that falls into play, but because this show really sometimes could create such a toxic and turmoil environment for families, it’s really hard for the cousins to stay close,” Gia explained on the May 26 episode of Casual Chaos. “It’s so unfair when your parents are at war with each other; quite honestly, it’s so hard to bring the kids together. I really think a lot of it has to do with the show.”
While Gia remained on good terms with Joe Giudice’s side of the family after her parents’ divorce, Teresa’s feud with Joe and Melissa, 46, has caused a divide in her and her sisters’ relationships with their cousins, Gino, Antonia, and Joey.
“We’ve reached out to my cousins for years, always wishing them a happy birthday and things like that, but we stopped receiving that in return,” Gia shared. “So it’s almost like, why continue if you’re not receiving the same thing in return? It’s sad.”
As for her relationship with Christian, Gia said they are “not yet” living together.
“I’m still young. [But] I think we’re gonna, we’re really discussing it now, so I wanna say probably within the next year,” she revealed.
Looking back at her decision to be more vocal on RHONJ after years of silence, Gia clarified that she “waited until [she] was 18.”
“It just came to the point where I couldn’t take it. I would be sitting there, watching scenarios play out, and I would think to myself, ‘You’re lying. This is not how it happened. That is not what you did for us. This is all a lie,’” she recalled. “And also it’s like, ‘You’re gaslighting everyone to thinking you were this amazing person, but you weren’t.'”
While Gia felt like she had no choice but to speak up, she faced backlash for doing so.
“I got called disrespectful, ‘I have no respect,’ everything that you could think of, ‘The way you talk to your uncle is shameful,’ everything, but it is really difficult when it’s your life and it’s your family and you have so much anger,” she reasoned.
Then, when her podcast guest, Lexi Ioannou, 29, said she “felt suffocated for so long” on the show, Gia agreed.
“That is the perfect word because you’re trying to release your truth … I was frustrated. I felt suffocated. It was a lot,” she confessed.
Regarding her similarities to Teresa, Gia said she and her mom are both “very similar and very different” in their thinking.
“I am still, I think, the more rational one. I think she’s a little more irrational than I am. But I kind of come to a middle ground. I try to bring everyone back to a middle ground, but I am like her in a way of, I take, I take, I take, and then I explode,” she explained. “So in the aspects of our temper, I would say we’re the same.”
Also on the episode, after noting that she would be open to a reality show with her family and kids, Gia said she was “so excited” for the premiere of Next Gen NYC, which follows her and other Real Housewives kids as they navigate life in the Big Apple.
“I’m actually getting away from my family drama … I feel like doing this on my own, I’m stepping into my own, I’m creating my own vision, path, identity for myself that this is what I want everybody to actually see, the person I want everybody to get to know, that I really am excited for it,” she stated. “Housewives, I was never excited for it because once I got older to the point where I really got to understand everything, it was always just negative about my family and about my personal life.”
“Going onto this show, nobody gives a sh*t that my mom and uncle don’t talk … It’s not too much [drama] but it’s also not toxic in any way. It’s playful, normal friend drama,” she added.
Next Gen NYC premieres on Tuesday, June 3, at 9/8c on Bravo
