Gia Giudice is opening up and giving her opinion regarding her mom, Teresa Giudice’s, decision to abruptly end a live TV interview over a question about her taxes.
“Honestly, I thought she handled it perfectly,” Gia, 24, said during the Tuesday, July 8, episode of the “Viall Files” podcast. “She’s over it because people have this whole narrative that we just don’t pay our taxes. It’s, honestly, comical for me but, not really.”
Gia added, “I honestly feel bad for my mom. I just feel so bad for her because she’s been busting her ass and paying everything since she got out [of prison].”
Teresa, 53, thought it was “so insulting” and “unprofessional” on the behalf of the news anchor when she was asked about her personal finances on live TV, Gia explained.
“She was going on there to promote the appearances that she had coming up and, overall, it was just so unprofessional,” Gia continued. “I think a lot of people said that it was. … I think, for her, she was just so insulted by it because people think they know, still to this day, and they don’t.”
Gia explains that she understands people want her to “set the record straight” when it comes to her finances, but reiterated that her mom’s financial status is “nobody else’s business.”
Teresa appeared on Chicago’s WGN Morning News late last month when news anchor Larry Potash asked The Real Housewives of New Jersey star why a “family doesn’t pay their taxes for years.”
The Bravo star replied, “What family are you talking about?” Potash clarified during the June 20 broadcast that he wanted to discuss her family in particular.
Teresa said, “Let’s just hang up,” before abruptly ending the call.
Teresa and ex-husband Joe Giudice were both convicted on 39 counts of fraud in 2014. She served an 11-month sentence in prison. (Joe, 53, served 41-months in prison before being deported to his native Italy. He currently resides in the Bahamas.)
Earlier this year, Us Weekly obtained documents stating that she and current husband Luis “Louie” Ruelas were facing $3 million in tax liens.
Potash continued discussing the situation even after Teresa got off the call.
He quipped that she “didn’t like that question,” before adding that controversy is “what reality shows are made of.”
Fellow RHONJ star Dolores Catania also weighed in on the live TV moment.
“I think that she was so taken back because when we speak to people — literally a news station — we’re not expecting that from them,” Dolores said during a June 23 appearance on iHeartRadio’s “Two T’s in a Pod” podcast. “I would never expect that. We don’t expect that from anyone. I was taken back, and I think that she was so taken aback [that] she wasn’t ready.”
