Lara Sophia 
The Giudice-Gorga family drama continues to keep Bravo viewers captivated.
Season 11 of the Real Housewives of New Jersey kicked off with a blowout fight going down between Joe Gorga and his niece Gia Giudice.
During the fight, Gia called her Uncle “disrespectful” for comments he made about her father, Joe Giudice. Joe fired back calling his niece’s behavior “horrendous” before reminding her: “I’ve loved you since the minute I saw you.”
Last season, Joe Gorga accused Joe Giudice of “[putting] [his] mother in her f–king grave” and claimed he didn’t know how to be a “man.”
Joe Gorga also blames his ex-brother-in-law for his sister, Teresa Giudice, going to jail and missing out on a year with their mother, who died less than two years after Teresa was released from prison. Their father, Giacinto Gorga, passed away in April 2020.
Now, Melissa is weighing in on the family drama during an interview with Page Six.
“I just feel bad for Joe in this situation because … it goes without saying that he dies for them,” Melissa said of Joe’s feeling for his sister’s four daughters, Gia, 21, Gabriella, 17, Milania, 15, and Audriana, 13.
“He loves them so much. He has a really special place [in his heart for] her girls, especially Gia,” Melissa explains. “He’s always put in a tough position because I think he’s never going to win the conversation about their father.”
“They see it their father’s way, which we understand and respect. But it just always hurts Joe,” she adds. “He’s put in that seat where he just has to sit back and take it because you can’t correct children about their parents because nobody wants to hear that.”
Despite the Giudice girls’ loyalty to their father, Melissa believes they understand their uncle has “hard feelings” towards Joe Giudice for the ups and downs he put Teresa through in their final years of marriage.
“They know how much he loved his parents,” Melissa notes.
The Gorgas and Giudices are “in a better spot” nowadays.
“I just think that everyone’s just so over it now. Everyone doesn’t want to discuss all the hardships that went on the last five years with everything in our family, with my in-laws and passing away. There’s a lot of hard feelings there, which everyone is working through,” she said. “But I think we’re past it now. I think we’ve gotten it all out. I can honestly say, this past year, we’ve all gotten it off our chest.”
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
