Do You Miss Danielle Staub On The RHONJ?

Season 3 of the Real Housewives of New Jersey started on a dramatic note Monday night – with an epic brawl at Teresa Giudice's nephew's christening.

Plus, there are two new Housewives – both related to Giudice – in the mix now that the show's villain, Danielle Staub, is gone.

While Giudice is certainly a drama magnet, Staub, in an interview with E! Online, recently predicted that ratings would suffer in her absence.

"I brought the [drama]," Staub, 48, said. "People either loved me or hated me, but they were paying attention. This [season] is just full out nasty family fighting. Everyone's got that. Where's the element of surprise there?

Do you miss Danielle Staub on the Real Housewives of New Jersey?
Yes, I miss her drama
No, there's plenty of drama without her

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Credit: PEOPLE (Sarah Durham Wilson)

Teresa Giudice: First Episode - 'Heartbreaking'

If you thought last night’s premiere episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey season three was shocking, you weren’t the only one! Even Teresa Giudice was shocked by watching her family fight on TV.

“I’m sorry I can’t start this blog with all kinds of excitement, because I don’t feel like there was much to celebrate in this first episode,” Teresa wrote on her Bravo blog. “It was beyond heartbreaking to watch.”

For Teresa, the first episode and the entire season have been difficult to film.

“My brother and I have always been close. Yes, when he got married things changed, but we were still close,” she explained. “The whole idea of a full-blown feud is crazy to me. I think you can tell by how shocked I was at the christening that this was an unexpected problem.”

And according to Teresa, everything was fine between them before that day.

“A month earlier, Joe and Melissa [Gorga] were at Audriana’s first birthday party with us. Gabriella, Milania, Antonia, and Gino go to preschool together. They see each other every day,” she said. “If we weren’t speaking, I would never have gone to their son’s christening.”

Watching the fight on tape was very upsetting to Teresa.

“To see what happened when I wasn’t in the room, to watch my brother run after my ailing father and insult my mother — it’s just too much. My family doesn’t deserve this,” she wrote. “I’m not going to trash anyone in my family or pick through every one of Melissa’s lies. I’ll let her speak for herself, and you can decide whatever you want to believe.”

“I know who I am. I love my family. I love my friends. And I love my fans,” she concludes. “I’m so proud of my wonderful husband, Joe. He always stands up for me and my family, and he kept his cool.”

While Teresa may not want to pick apart Melissa in her blog, Melissa doesn’t seem to feel the same way with her Bravo blog.

“She has never been happy for her brother or cared about anything good going on in his life or his children’s. She only wants to discuss her life and only cares about herself,” Melissa writes about Teresa. “She kept us as far away during Season 1 and Season 2, because I think she knew this would happen when they found us. Karma is a bitch. Family comes first for me, but unfortunately it does not for her, and it never will. It’s just not who she is, and that’s OK, but don’t think we are going to go on national TV and be fake with you. We are not fakers, sorry.”

Credit: OK! Magazine

Teresa Giudice: NJ Housewives Viewing Party

Teresa Giudice and hubby Joe Giudice attended the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" Season 3 viewing and "Fabulicious" Cookbook launch party at Tribeca Night Club on May 16, 2011 in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Credit: Wire Image

Melissa Gorga Talks About Son's Christening

If you've just watched the Season 3 premiere of the "Real Housewives of New Jersey," you may still be in shock at the violent and emotional events that broke out at new cast member Melissa Gorga's christening party for her son.

"When it was going on," Melissa tells Zap2it. "I was screaming at the producers and I was saying, 'Put your cameras down! This is my son's christening! This is not funny.' I was freaking. I didn't sleep for a week after that christening."

In fact, Melissa tells us she has no regrets about joining the Bravo show... except for letting the cameras shoot at that event.

"It's very hard on me, very bittersweet," she says. "I love to see my son's christening day, but to see my husband in such pain was agonizing to me to me to watch. And to just see that be the memory of my son's christening day is devastating. But, it's the reality. I've learned to face it and realize it happened. And I'm moving past it now."

Melissa tells us she believes fellow cast mate and sister-in-law Teresa Giudice only came over to her and her husband, because the cameras were shooting. And while that may have launched the evening's tragic events, she says it goes much further back than that.

"It goes very deep and it runs deep," she says. "So, it's going to play out and you're going to see exactly why my husband did what he did and reacted the way he reacted and why we're so bitter with her. And we're done with the whole front she puts up and we're not going to do it for the cameras. So, I think it's going to play out and you're slowly going to see our stories unfold."

The scene quickly becomes a jumbled mess of tilted cameras, yelling and screaming, and it becomes difficult to figure out what's going on. So, we asked Melissa if there's anything she wanted to clear up about the events of the night.

"I do want to say after watching it that the way that you see my husband," she tells us. "You are going to see so many different sides of my husband and that was my husband in amazing pain, ridiculous amounts of pain and emotion. And I feel it comes through."

Credit: Zap 2 It (Jethro Nededog)

Danielle Staub -- RHONJ Will Flop Without Me!

The third season of Real Housewives of New Jersey kicks off tonight on Bravo, and two new ladies will be introduced to the Garden State crowd. But former Housewife Danielle Staub thinks the new season will be an epic flop without her.

“It’s not going to have the ratings,” Danielle told E! Online of the third season. “I brought the [drama]. People either loved me or hated me, but they were paying attention. This [season] is just full out nasty family fighting. Everyone’s got that. Where’s the element of surprise there?”

And don’t expect Danielle, who is rumored to be dating Ray Jay, to watch the new season either.

“It was becoming nonproductive for me,” she said. “I’m so much, so much more less stressed. I mean Bravo was amazing, the producers were amazing, but you know the cast, there’s no resolve with them… I think it’s time for everyone to see who truly the crazy ones are.”

The ladies who are featured on the show stopped by the set of the TODAY show this morning, and shared why they think you should tune in to the action.

“It’s really deep,” said newcomer Melissa Gorga of the first fight of the season that happens at the Christening of her son on tonight’s premiere episode. “It’s real. There’s a lot of emotions going on. It’s unfortunate. The cameras caught it all. It happens.”

Credit: OK! Magazine (Brittany Talarico)

Teresa Doesn't Want to Show This to Her Kids

No Danielle? No problem! Despite the departure of series antagonist Danielle Staub at the end of Season 2, there's no shortage of drama ahead for the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Case in point: the reality show's third season premiere (Monday at 9/8c on Bravo). The episode welcomes two new cast members — Teresa Giudice's sister-in-law Melissa Gorga and cousin Kathy Wakile — but keeping it in the family comes at a high price as a fight breaks out at a baptism. Giudice talked with TV Guide about how her sister-in-law and cousin joined the show, the tension with her brother, Joe, and the "heartbreaking" portrayal of her family this season.

It's made clear in the first episode you don't get along with Melissa and Kathy so how did they come to join the show?

Teresa Giudice: I got the phone call from Bravo. I didn't even know that they were going to be on [the show]. I was like, "Wow." It was weird because I was talking to my cousin, and she never told me. I saw my brother a month before we started filming and there was no mention of anything. So I was pretty shocked.

Do you think Bravo approached them specifically because of the tension within the family?

Giudice: I heard through the grapevine that they wrote letters trying to get on the show. Last year at the reunion show when I pushed Andy Cohen, Danielle had mentioned my sister-in-law's name, but they cut that part out. I was shocked. It was weird — Danielle is talking to my sister-in-law?

Knowing your strained relationships with Melissa and Kathy, did you ever consider not coming back to the show?

Giudice: They always say, "Don't mix business and family together." That's my take on it. Not that I didn't want to come back — I never expected what was going to happen. Not in a million years did I expect that to happen. I was like, "All right, let's just do this." ... My brother and I were like best friends and even when Joe and Melissa got married, I was so happy for them. I asked Melissa to be Gabriella's godmother. If I didn't like her, I would have never done that. I was thrilled for them. But after that, things changed. I was also very close with my cousin and then, I started working and started doing the show and things change. I guess that's when she started becoming close to Melissa. That's fine, I have four daughters. I have a lot going on.

Was there a part of you that hoped filming the series may help bring your family together?

Giudice: I didn't know what to expect just because I was shocked that they didn't tell me they were in it. That was weird to me from the beginning. .... It breaks my heart for my parents, for my children, it's not the way our family is. It's devastating to me.

A lot of people assumed there would automatically be less tension this season with Danielle gone. How has filming been overall?

Giudice: Danielle was a stranger and this is family, so it's harder to me. You'll just have to see how it plays out throughout the season.

How is the dynamic between all five Housewives considering your tension with Melissa and Kathy?

Giudice: [Caroline and Jacqueline] are just meeting them now. I'm not the type to go up to them and say, "Don't speak to them." Of course they are going to interact with them. But they're my family, so I know the history. Jacqueline and Caroline are newbies to my family.

Credit: TV Guide (Kate Stanhope)

Teresa Giudice on S3: 'Its Really Sad-I Cry a Lot'

You'd think with Danielle Staub gone, Teresa Guidice's life on Real Housewives of New Jersey would take a turn for the better, right?

Well, it's just not so. In fact, things actually appear to be worse. And I'm not even talking about her husband Joe's money problems....

The show's two new Housewives happen to be related to Teresa. Melissa Gorga is her sister-in-law (she's married to Teresa's only sibling, younger brother Joe). Kathy Wakile is Teresa's first cousin.

Sadly, Teresa doesn't appear to get along with either of them or her brother.

In the premiere of season three, airing May 16, a full-on brawl actually breaks out during Melissa and Joe's christening party for their son after they exchange nasty words with Teresa.

Teresa and Joe were once best friends, but the relationship apparently fell part after he married Melissa. What happened isn't clear, but it's very obvious Melissa and Joe are no fans of Teresa's husband, Joe. "It breaks my heart," Teresa told me recently from Chicago, where she was promoting her second cookbook, Fabulicious! Teresa's Italian Family Cookbook. "That's why you're going to see a totally different side of me this season. It's really sad. I cry a lot on the show and it's very hard for me."

Teresa insists she was excited when Melissa joined the family. She even asked her to be her daughter Gabriella's godmother. "I was really happy for them," Teresa said. "I wanted him to get married so bad. That was is third fiancée, so we just wanted him to get married. We always said we wanted our kids to grow up together. And I really wanted her to become the sister I never had."

Well, that didn't happen. In fact, Teresa says, no one from the family told her that Melissa and Kathy had joined the Housewives cast. "I didn't find out until I had heard from Bravo," she said. "I got the phone call from Bravo and I was like blown away. I was like, 'Really?' And then that's what made me a little upset because I was like, 'Wow, it would have been nice for my brother to call me or my cousin to call me. It's just weird to me. It really is. Just blows my mind."

Credit: E! Online (Marc Malkin)

Teresa Giudice Talks Season 3 Of RHONJ

Dying for the new season of Real Housewives of New Jersey to start? So are we. But don't look to Teresa Giudice to give up any juicy details.

The housewife sat down with Today's Hoda Kotbe and Kathie Lee Gifford this morning to promote her new cookbook and the new season of RHONJ and the only thing she revealed was how to pronounce her name!

Credit: Celeb TV