Andy Cohen Has An Issue With Jim Marchese’s Criticism Of ‘Teresa Checks In’

Andy Cohen may not be personally invested in Teresa Giudice’s legal troubles. Cohen may be close friends with her, as they have worked on The Real Housewives of New Jersey together for years. Cohen knows that fans care about Teresa’s well-being, and many were curious about how she got herself into this legal mess. Giudice has promised to write a tell-all book once she is released, but Real Housewives of New Jersey fans are getting impatient.

Andy Cohen may have known that Bravo was working on a special spin-off show called The Real Housewives of New Jersey: Teresa Checks In, even though he denied knowing anything about the show. Now that the three-part special has aired, Jim Marchese has shared his thoughts, and he believes that the special is “a dark endorsement of criminal behavior and exploitation of children.”

According to a new Bravo report, Andy Cohen has now learned of Jim’s comments, and he is coming to Teresa’s defense. In fact, he doesn’t think that Jim understands how connected viewers are to Giudice and her family. Fans met them long before the legal drama and have followed them on this journey.

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“First of all, he wasn’t involved in the original show. He characterizes it as ‘tongue and cheek fun, a guilty pleasure,’ but it was pretty intense from the get-go,” Andy said of the criticism, adding, “Teresa [Giudice] flipped a table in the finale of the first season, so if he calls that ‘tongue and cheek fun [and] a guilty pleasure,’ that’s fine. I don’t think it was that fun for Danielle Staub, actually. I got pushed like a rag doll in the Season 2 reunion, that didn’t seem like ‘tongue and cheek fun.'”

Of course, Jim started the show as a hobby. He thought it would be fun to film the show, and he was very open about his dislike for Joe Giudice. Since he worked in the legal field, he didn’t want to be associated with Giudice. While filming, Jim’s wife, Amber Marchese, shared her breast cancer story. After the show wrapped, she learned her cancer had returned. But Andy Cohen does have a response for Jim’s comment.

“I take issue with him saying, ‘It is morphing into a dark endorsement of criminal behavior and exploitation of children.’ He put his kids on the Housewives, so his kids — who are a lot younger — were on. And also, the thing about it is, we have been following this family for seven, eight years, and so we are continuing to follow them. There’s great interest in what’s going on with them. We haven’t endorsed anyone’s behavior on that show. We’ve shown it, as a matter of fact, without editorialization. And I would say the same for Jim’s behavior, which many people thought he was a jack*** last season. We showed his behavior without any generalization. We left it on the viewers to make their own mind up,” Andy explains.

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Fans were indeed split when it came to Marchese. Some thought it was awesome that he was speaking up on something that people hadn’t said much about. Others thought he was too aggressive and wanted him off the show. But as Andy Cohen points out, the Real Housewives franchise is all about people having opinions and taking sides. So Jim’s opinion about Teresa isn’t something he takes personally. And Jim may be happy to know that America didn’t dig Teresa Checks In. The ratings were nowhere near what Bravo may have expected.

Do you think Andy Cohen has a point about Jim Marchese? What did you think of Bravo choosing to do a special about Teresa Giudice’s family?

[Image via Instagram]