‘RHONJ’ recap: Joe Gorga claims Gia told him he can ‘do better’ than Melissa

Joe Gorga is calling out his niece, Gia Giudice, for encouraging him to leave wife Melissa Gorga amid speculation that she cheated on him.

“Gia calls me up and she’s like, ‘You know, I heard what happened. We just think that you can do better. Mommy [Teresa Giudice] thinks so, we all do,’” the reality star recalled in a confessional that aired during Tuesday’s “Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

Joe claimed Gia called after Teresa and her then-fiancé, Luis “Louie” Ruelas, secretly invited him over to tell him that Melissa was allegedly being unfaithful.

“They told me about this rumor, this cheating rumor, and they continue to push this issue. And he [Ruelas] goes, ’No, there’s multiple men,’” Joe added in his confessional.

“I’m sitting there as they’re telling me basically to, like, leave Melissa.”

Earlier in the episode, Joe explained that six months prior, Ruelas called him and told him he needed to see him “right away” to tell him something “very important.”

“So I go to [Teresa’s] house, and Luis says, ‘We heard that Melissa cheated on you.’ I go, ‘Guys, you got the wrong girl,’” Joe continued.

The conversation was again brought up after co-star Danielle Cabral alleged she had heard Melissa kissed another man in the back of a carseat.

“Let’s be f–king really honest, I already heard this story,” Melissa firmly told Cabral, clapping back at the allegations.

“His sister called him secretly over to her house without me to tell him this story behind my back.”

Melissa slammed her “f–ked up sister-in-law” for spreading a “baseless rumor,” arguing that Teresa “feeds on us getting a divorce.”

“Half the reason he can’t look at [Teresa] in the eyes is because she called him over to her house that day,” Melissa claimed.

However, Teresa and Luis both disagreed with Melissa and denied that she had anything to do with Ruelas telling Joe about the rumors.

“First of all, it wasn’t his sister – it was Luis,” Teresa said in a confessional, claiming Ruelas only did it so that Joe could “get in front of it.”

Ruelas also told the Gorgas that “Teresa didn’t want to call him, [so] don’t go blaming Teresa.”

The bombshell led to the two couples getting into an explosive argument at the finale party, with Melissa calling Teresa a “loser,” Teresa clapping back and saying Melissa is “disgusting” and Ruelas and Joe nearly getting into a physical altercation.

“Why are you looking like that with your eyes, like, what’s the matter? Why are you talking like this?” Melissa asked Ruelas at one point, referring to his eyes bulging out. “I’m the one getting all this s–t, thank you very much.”

Ruelas quipped back, “you’re welcome.”

The response quickly angered Joe, and he charged toward his future brother-in-law before the husbands held both of them back.

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“Don’t get in her face like angry like the devil. I mean who talks to a woman like that?” Joe asked in a confessional.

The altercation and accusation ultimately results in the Gorgas not attending Teresa and Ruelas’ wedding, arguing that the two were “constantly trying to destroy” Melissa’s marriage to Joe.

“Everything that [Teresa] has been trying to say about me since I’m 24 years old – this was all her doing. I don’t need to deal with toxic people that want to bring me down, even if they come in the shape of your family,” Melissa concluded in a confessional.

Teresa seconded that notion and added that the two of them “hate us, obviously.”

“This has been going on over 10 years,” Teresa explained to Ruelas. “I dealt with it with my ex, I’m not gonna deal with it in my new chapter of my life. I’m so done.”

The longtime Bravolebrity ominously got in the last word by saying that Melissa “got her wish” of “wanting to get my brother away from me.”

The two families confronted each other for the first time in the explosive Season 13 “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reunion which filmed last month.

The “Real Housewives of New Jersey” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.

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