Teresa Giudice‘s husband, Luis Ruelas, is under fire on social media after a party planner called out those behind the app Vivina, his latest business venture, for failing to pay her more than $330,000 for the company’s launch party last year.
Months after the Real Housewives of New Jersey star, 50, one of his sons, two of Teresa’s daughters, Gia Giudice, 23, and Audriana Giudice, 14, and Gia’s boyfriend, Christian Carmichael, attended the event, the planner behind the bash wants to know where her money went.
In screenshots shared by Wife of the Party, via Bravo and Cocktails on Instagram, this week, the woman wrote a message to Luis directly, although she used the wrong username to tag him.
“[Luis Ruelas] how do we get paid?!” she asked, along with an event photo of Teresa, 52, and their blended family.
In other posts shared on the Story of Wife of the Party on Instagram, she featured comments from other social media users.
“Everyone remember that big launch for Louie with Vinivia well Louie hasn’t paid the women who put it together,” one person wrote. “She’s being silenced too but just wait team Teresa will label her crazy and obsessed too, it’s how they operate.”
“How will you pay us the $330,000 [plus] you’ve owed us along with all the other vendors that are waiting?” asked another message. “It’s been 60 days and a lot of excuses.”
Then, in another message shared by Wife of the Party, she included a screenshot of Vinivia’s Instagram post about the party, which tagged her as the planner.
“When [Vinivia] says they can’t pay you because their investors aren’t paying them,” she captioned the post.
As RHONJ fans may recall, Bravo’s The Daily Dish shared an article back in April about Luis’ new venture, revealing that Teresa’s children had supported his “new [beginning].”
Around the same time, Luis spoke out about the project.
“This is a live streaming platform that’s being launched on April 4, 2024, solely for creators and influencers around the world,” he told TMZ in March. “That’s what I do for a living.”
As the social media posts against Luis continued, someone wrote, “Louie Ruelas called out for not paying 300k to a company that helped launch his app Vinivia,” as they shared a clip of Luis talking to TMZ about Vinivia.
It was also noted that Wife of the Party was “hired by Vinivia and has yet to be paid $330,000 [plus].”
Meanwhile, on Vinivia’s account, Luis can be seen promoting the company.
“Augmented reality and artificial intelligence is one of our specialties here at Vinivia. Bringing your followers and your audiences down a beautiful consumer journey with product placements behind you and they may not seem placed in other environments. Do it live. Vinivia now. Let’s go!” he said in a filmed ad.
Speaking out in a lengthy video shared to her Instagram page amid the drama, Wife of the Party admitted that the non-payment has been “really difficult”
“And this isn’t a dispute, to be clear, about vendors or a miscommunication or a line item because that’s a completely different thing than someone having a contract and promising to pay for services rendered and asking if they can delay the payment until Monday because a wire didn’t come in,” she stated. “I want to be very clear that as this project went on, everything was requested and approved and I have everything to show that. This wasn’t a surprise number. [Marcello Genovese] fully agreed and just kept giving me excuses.”
According to the app’s website, Marcello is the CEO and co-founder of Vinivia. Meanwhile, according to a report from The U.S. Sun, Luis is the co-founder of Digital Media Solutions (DMS), which helped with the launch of Vinivia, and an “independent contractor” of the app.
“I’m at the point now where I finally realize that they’re not going to pay me. It’s making me sick and I think that moreover, it was really important that I finally spoke up because I went back and forth,” Wife of the Party continued. “I was told not to. I was told not to air out the drama as a company but this isn’t drama. This is complete fraud and this is a few hundred thousand dollars. Yet there are a lot of things that Vinivia and Marcello are doing that they need money for yet he keeps telling me money is coming my way. And there’s been fraudulent paperwork, there’s been money returned. He did send a couple small credit card payments but I do realize now that was just to shut me up and it just really sucks.”
According to Wife of the Party, she learned that Vinivia got Luis a new office at Avenue of the Stars and has been “hiring girls,” all while owing her over $300,000.
“[They] had this huge party that they couldn’t afford at my expense,” she added.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 14 airs Sundays at 8/7c on Bravo.
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