This week’s episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey showed the cast’s compassion and open-mindedness when Kathy Wakile’s sister, Rosie Pierri, came out and at Caroline Manzo’s brother’s wedding to his long time partner. Unfortunately, the same openness cannot be said for Teresa Giudice‘s husband, Joe Giudice, who made some homophobic comments toward the Manzo sons’ gay roommate, Greg.
Now the Housewives are taking to their blogs to defend Juicy Joe, even those who don’t typically care for him.
“I’m probably going to get crucified for this, but I don’t think he meant it with malice,” Caroline Manzo said on her Bravo blog. “Now understand that I think the remark was awful and in the poorest of taste, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he’s like a kid, he just blurts things out regardless of how it hurts. Yes, he is a 40-year-old man, and yes he should know better, but when he said that he immediately took it back and apologized.”
But Caroline didn’t deny Joe’s previous offenses involving homophobic comments.
“Over the past few seasons he has made numerous gay slurs,” she wrote. “And there’s no denying that there’s an issue there, but in this instance I think he was making a poor attempt to be funny.”
Teresa also, as usual, came to the defense of her husband.
“You can see the jokes we were all making and what we were all laughing about,” she wrote on her Bravo blog about the adult conversations they were having on the bus. “That’s the atmosphere we went from to the shuttle when Joe made his joke to Greg. I didn’t think that Joe’s joke to Greg was offensive for the same reasons some of you do.”
If that defense didn’t induce any cringing, don’t worry, Teresa has plenty more to say on the matter:
“Yes, Joe was joking around, and yes like men do, he crossed the line by ragging on Greg,” Teresa wrote. “But Joe’s joke was about Greg sleeping around, not that he’s gay. We used to joke with a girl in college who slept around… It’s a terrible joke, yes, but at least it’s an equal opportunity offense. That’s the thing about Joe, he treats everyone the same way — his gay and his straight friends, they both get the same bad jokes.”
Yikes. It looks like the moral of the story is, don’t be friends with Joe Giudice. And that’s something that Jacqueline Laurita can agree with.
“Shame on Joe Giudice for the inappropriate and offensive comments referencing the gays,” Jacqueline wrote on her Bravo blog. “Shame on them both. Joe for the comments in poor taste, Teresa for laughing. Enough said.”
What do you think? Did Joe Giudice cross the line?
Gina Pusateri
Contributing Writer
(Image courtesy of Bravo)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
