Teresa Giudice refuses to let her marriage be torn apart. In a new interview, the Real Housewives of New Jersey star denied that she will divorce Joe Giudice after he was ordered to be deported to his native Italy.
“No. We’re going to be a family,” Teresa, 46, told Entertainment Tonight on Monday, October 29. “We’re going to fight this and get through this.”
During an October 10 court hearing, Joe, 46, was ordered to leave the U.S. after he completes his 41-month prison sentence for fraud in March 2019. A source told Us Weekly exclusively at the time that Joe plans to appeal the decision and “isn’t going to go down without a fight,” which Teresa echoed on Monday.
“We are not even thinking about [whether we’d move to Italy] right now,” she told ET. “We’re going to take it day by day. We’re going to take it one step at a time. First, we’re going to process the paperwork to do an appeal, and we’re going to get through that.”
The Bravo personality said she is trying to stay “positive” about the news, but it’s tough for her to discuss it.
“Joe starts talking about [the deportation order] and I don’t want to talk about it yet,” she said. “I am like, ‘We’re not talking about this yet.’ I shut him down. I don’t want to talk about it, and what comes first is our daughters, and we’re going to fight this.”
In addition to her four daughters with Joe — Gia, 17, Gabriella, 14, Milania, 13, and Audriana, 9 — Teresa noted that she is “not even thinking about” going to Italy and leaving behind her father, Giacinto Gorga.
This is not the first hardship that the couple, who celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary on October 23, have faced. They both pleaded guilty in 2014 to 41 counts of fraud, and Teresa served 11 months in prison the following year. She made headlines again in January when she posted a photo on Instagram of herself having dinner with a divorce lawyer, but her attorney later clarified to Us that a split “ain’t happening.”