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Last week, Real Housewives of New Jersey cast member to Jacqueline Laurita declared her intentions leave the show, saying that she was tired of "sneaky people trying to make someone look bad and then play innocent on camera." This weekend, we got some details of the fight that's driving the N.J. housewives apart -- and Laurita had some choice words for Teresa Giudice, the cast member she believes to be the instigator.
"Teresa is scum!" Laurita, 41, twittered in no uncertain terms.
What happened, exactly, to make enemies of the two former friends? It appears that the longtime rivalry between Teresa, 39, and her sister-in-law, new cast member Melissa Gorga, has gotten so out of hand that Teresa's friends can't take it anymore. Things came to a head during filming last week, when Gorga was reportedly ambushed on camera about her past job at a strip club.
"Bravo's surprise at the fashion show was for Melissa: her ex-boss at Lookers, the strip club she used to work at," a source told The Huffington Post's Rob Shuter. "No one knew him, no one knew he was coming -- although, of course Bravo had a microphone on him -- and Melissa ran away from him and refused to film with him. The producers made Teresa talk to him to 'hear him out,' so his accusations would be aired on camera, but Teresa stopped him mid-story and told him to not talk about her family and left."
Here's where the story splits into two versions. Version No. 1, as told to HuffPo: Melissa didn't want her "new besties" Caroline Manzo and Jacqueline to know about her stripper past, so she told them that Teresa had set her up. To get back at Teresa, Jacqueline leaked the press a picture of Teresa's husband, Joe Giudice, having dinner with another woman. (RadarOnline has the photo.)
Got that? Okay, here's version No. 2: Teresa knew all along that Melissa worked at a strip club -- as a bartender, not a stripper -- and "played dumb" so that Bravo could ambush Melissa in front of the whole cast. Teresa then accused Jacqueline of leaking the pictures of her husband and the other woman -- even though Jacqueline had tried to warn Teresa. This is the version put forward by Laurita on her Twitter account, where she has also posted screenshots of a text message conversation with Teresa that she claims proves her innocence. (The conversation is in bits and pieces, but you can read a pieced-together version at LALate.)
Clearly, it's a case of "she said, she said" at this point. For what it's worth, Teresa denies setting up Melissa. "Breaks my heart that anyone would believe I would be part of something to hurt my family," she tweeted. "Fame can mess with your mind. Family is forever... And for the record: I don't believe MG was a stripper but I wouldn't care anyway." And both Melissa and her former boss deny that she ever worked as a stripper, saying that she was briefly a bartender at the upscale gentleman's club Lookers.
"My outfit was a tank top, shorts and sneakers," writes Gorga on her blog. "SORRY, no bubbies there."
So who's telling the truth? Everyone's holding back details until the current season finishes shooting -- but Jacqueline promises that the drama isn't over.
"What until u hear the rest," she wrote on Saturday. "There is much more but I'm letting it all unravel little by little all on it's own. No more talk about it!"
No more talk about it? Fat chance of that.
