Was everyone watching the same Real Housewives of New Jersey reunion I was last season? You remember the one where Melissa Gorga tearfully dabbed at her eyes with a sequined sleeve and told Andy Cohen they were selling their Montville mansion so her daughter wouldn't be bullied at school by Teresa Giudice's wayward band of hoodlum children?
Just checking because apparently now that's not the case. Apparently now Melissa and Joe Gorga are moving to avoid rush hour traffic or something and because they bought some oceanfront property in Arizona to lovingly construct their next zillion-dollar, impeccably finished mansion. Joe – little tip: this time skip the plastic sinks. Teresa's in debt maybe she can sell you some of her marble vanities.
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Melissa explains it all in her latest Bravo blog. Let's dissect.
"On to the subject of selling our house. I know the perception out there is that we’re doing it for one reason: to get away from the Giudices. But the truth is, we put our house on the market months before strippergate," Melissa insisits.
"It was a bad time to sell though because of the economy, so we took it off. When all the drama of last season started happening, we decide to put it back on." The house was on the market on and off – even before the couple signed onto RHONJ. The rumor is once Melissa was cast to the show they remained in the house to keep up appearances.
"Why sell the house that Joe built for us from the ground up? A bunch of reasons, but mainly, I just could not stand to live one more day with that cracked sink!"
As for the sink, Melissa claims she's the one with tacky taste. Oh… we hadn't noticed! And she blames editing for a faulty perception.
"That sink, incidentally, is in the kids’ playroom bathroom. They were messing around in there, and broke it. It’s my fault we had it anyway. I ordered the sink online based on just a picture. Big mistake. When it arrived, Joe took one look at it and said, 'What a piece of crap. I’m putting it in the kids’ playroom.' FYI: A marble replacement is on order. It won’t be cracked."
As for the new reasons they are moving, Melissa cites a decision to be closer to Poison's work.
"Joe put his heart and soul into our house. Yes, we built it. Yes, we love it. And we’ll do it again. We’ll love our next home even more. We already found the perfect lot in Franklin Lakes, where we lived when we got married and have wanted to return to. Franklin Lakes is much closer to Paterson where Joe goes to work everyday."
Oh – she's also worried about the schools. Fair enough.
"The reason I pushed our broker Jerry to sell 'now or never' was because of Antonia. I didn’t want her to have to switch schools in a higher grade. I know from personal experience that it gets harder to make new friends the farther along you are. My Mom and I moved to Florida when I was a freshman in high school, and that was a disaster for me."
"I know Antonia is a long way from high school. I just think the sooner she gets settled into a new school, the better. The drama with the Giudices was the final push to get us serious about moving. It seemed like the right thing at the time."
Melissa adds that Joe also wanted to sell, not just her. And she did no such "monthly bill" like trannnzes on him like her SIL suspects! "On the episode, it comes off like Joe didn’t want to sell and agreed to it only because of me. Joe wanted to put it on the market as much as I did—and to get a good price."
And finally Melissa comments on Jennifer Dalton. "We weren’t too impressed with Jennifer Dalton’s realtor skills. When we met her at a Sandy Hurricane fund-raiser, she talked a good game."
"She brought a client over all right, but then nitpicked about one crack in over a 10,000 square foot house? That’s how she sells a place? I wish she’d spent as much time in the gorgeous kitchen with acres of marble countertops and trim work galore rather than crowd three people into my kids’ playroom bathroom."
Maybe Jennifer wasn't in the kitchen because the Gorgas and their kids were all clustered in there hovering over said marble countertops?
[Photo Credit: Alberto Reyes/WENN.com]
TELL US – WHY IS MELISSA CHANGING HER STORY ABOUT MOVING?
