After Part 2 of this very messy The Real Housewives of New Jersey Reunion, much of the buzz was about Teresa, Andy, and Joe.
These explosive moments almost — but not quite — distracted us all from a very weird revelation.
For ages, Dolores Catania dated David Principe.
Now, David is dating one of Luis Ruelas’ exes. Small world?
“It’s true,” Dolores confirmed to Andy Cohen at the Reunion special.
However, Teresa Giudice had one little bone to pick with the news.
She claimed that this woman, whose name was not revealed, is “not really” one of her fiance’s exes — not as far as she is concerned.
“It was just someone that he was talking to two months before,” Teresa said dismissively.
Well since “talking” is used all but synonymously with “dating” or at least to mean one of the early stages of dating, how is “ex” not the right label?
Dolores, at least, considers the woman to be an ex of Luis’ no matter what Teresa would like to believe.
“It was two months,” Dolores corrected Teresa.
“And then the day he met you, he never called her again!” she announced.
By all accounts, once Teresa and Luis got together, everything else went up in smoke. They were, and are, crazy about each other.
“So, he ghosted this woman for you?” Andy asked.
People sometimes exaggerate what ghosting means, but “talking” for months only to go radio silent without explanation would certainly qualify.
“Well, I don’t know. You have to ask him what he told her,” Teresa replied. “I don’t know.”
Catania’s erstwhile romances have played a significant role in her life.
Obviously, there’s Frank Catania.
But her relationship with David was lengthy, and absolutely impacted how she views life and love.
“Well, my relationship with Frank, I learned that there’s life after that,” Dolores characterized.
She and Frank share two adult children, 26-year-old Gabrielle and 23-year-old Frankie.
The two share a strong friendship, as evidenced both on and off screen.
Of course, decades ago, things were very different.
Dolores filed to divorce Frankie all of those years back after discovering that he had been cheating.
That is a familiar plight for some of her castmates, but not all of the Housewives handle that crisis in the same way.
These days, Dolores acknowledges that she wasted “too much time” on her relationship with David, as her friend and castmate warned her at the time.
“[Teresa] was on my back,” she recalled. “She’s like, ‘Its [been] five years!’”
Dolores split with David last year, and is now of course dating Paul Connell.
Paul is the CEO of Eco Electrical Services.
While there is some hope that he might make an appearance next season, Dolores feels that the show is sort of a cautionary tale that warns off significant others.
“Well, Andy, does anybody want to walk into this and get f–king destroyed?” she asked the Bravo host.
Dolores pointed out how filming for a reality show like theirs can be a “scary thing.”
Newcomer Luis and seasoned castmate Joe Gorga have both found themselves in unpleasant situations.
That said … Dolores suspects that Paul will sign on to the show anyway.
“Would he do it? Yes. He would do anything for me,” Dolores reported at the Reunion.
“When you’re with someone, you do these things,” she characterized.
She is less sure as to whether she’s up for marrying Paul one day, but admitted that she might feel differently one day.