'RHONJ' Reunion: Teresa Giudice Forced to Defend Ex-Husband Joe's Mean Comments About the Gorgas (Exclusive)

Teresa Giudice is in defense mode on 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey' season 11 reunion
Bravo

In ET's sneak peek at 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey's season 11 reunion, Teresa Giudice faces off with her brother, Joe Gorga.

In a tale as old as time, or at least the majority of The Real Housewives of New Jersey's run, the Giudices and the Gorgas are getting into it... about one another. It all goes down in ET's exclusive first look at the season 11 reunion, when host Andy Cohen offers up this viewer question to Teresa Giudice: "Your brother has done nothing but defend you against your ex-husband and the terrible way he treated you. Why can't you see that?"

"Yeah, and [I did] nothing but defend my brother in the beginning of my marriage," Teresa answers, inspiring quizzical looks from most of her co-stars. "Like, and he knows that. I always put my brother before my husband. Alls I'm trying to say is, they're saying this on national TV. My kids got upset about it."

In the middle of season 11, Teresa's brother, Joe, his wife, Melissa Gorga, and Teresa got into it over Teresa's ex-husband, Joe Giudice, in a cheese-plate throwing, table-smashing fight. The Gorgas were upset that Teresa was seemingly defending her ex to a fault, despite the fact that he regularly posts clickbait articles about his estranged siblings-in-law on Instagram. As Melissa told ET back in March, just before the fight aired, "I am his clickbait. 'Screw Melissa, I hate…' … you'll see on this episode, [Teresa’s] like, 'Take his name out of your mouths.' Really? Because I don't care -- ever -- to bring him up, believe me that. So it just gets very one-sided and Joe gets very insulted, which I have to agree with him. Not because he's my husband. When he's wrong, I tell him he's wrong. But I feel his pain."

That pain seemingly goes further than Joe, as Melissa counters Teresa's comment that her "kids got upset about it" by sharing an example of the hurt Joe's words have caused in her own home, sharing an anecdote about her 14-year-old daughter.

"The other day, Antonia came into my room with an article and she's like, 'Mommy, why does Zio Joe always write these horrible things about you?'" she recalls. "It's like, Antonia's reading it, too."

Watch the back and forth play out here:

Andy then brings up Teresa's 20-year-old daughter, Gia's, recent appearance on his show, Watch What Happens Live, on which she said, "My Uncle Joe and Aunt Melissa should not bring up my father, because it's not only disrespecting my mom, but it's disrespecting my sisters and I."

"I've kept my mouth shut for a very long time, so if I exploded once, now I'm the bad guy?" Joe asks, reacting to the clip of his niece. "One time?"

Teresa and bestie Jennifer Aydin chime in at the same time, with Teresa telling her brother he's "not the bad guy" and Jennifer offering up some advice: "Maybe you shouldn't do it on TV."

"Listen, listen," Joe fires back. "This is real life. Sometimes you can't control it. It's a tough subject, right? That's why I sometimes get a little crazy. You understand?"

"Have you ever talked to them?" Andy asks. "Have you ever talked to Gia about it?"

"Listen, everyone's about their own," Joe replies, a statement to which Andy agrees. The WWHL host then turns to Teresa and says, "I gotta tell you. I have something here that [Joe Giudice] said in the press that is not great and, I mean... I'm just going to tell you."

"All right, who's it about?" Teresa ponders, as Andy points at her brother and sister-in-law. "It's about them."

Fans will have to tune in to see what quotes of Joe Giudice's Andy brings up, but when ET spoke with Teresa in February, she said she would never let anything hurt her relationship with her family.

"I always think about my parents and I'm never going to disappoint them," Teresa shared at the time. "I'm never going to disappoint my children. … I always get along with my brother because I always want my daughters to get along with each other, with their sisters."

The Real Housewives of New Jersey's two-part season 11 reunion kicks off on Wednesday, May 19, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. Part two airs Wednesday, May 26, at the same time. Check out the trailer below:

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