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Dina Manzo Confirms Teresa Giudice’s Claim Jacqueline Laurita Once Hit Caroline Manzo In The Face

By Karen de Wilde
Published on: 08:05 PST, Nov 17, 2016

On the just-finished season 7 of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa Giudice mentioned several times that Jacqueline Laurita once punched her sister-in-law Caroline Manzo, who starred on the show alongside them from Seasons 1 through 5, in the face. Teresa made that claim to convince others that Jacqueline was capable of outrageous and unpredictable behavior. Teresa said it once in a confessional interview, once in the car to Melissa Gorga when they were on their way to meet Jacqueline at the behest of Siggy Flicker and again on the reunion show. Did Jacqueline actually punch Caroline in the face once? If so, why would Jacqueline do such a thing?

On Tuesday, Dina Manzo, Caroline’s sister and Jacqueline’s sister-in-law, did an interview with Heather McDonald for Heather’s Juicy Scoop podcast. During the interview, Dina, who starred on Real Housewives alongside Caroline, Jacqueline, and Teresa on Seasons 1 and 2 and then returned for Season 6, confirmed Teresa’s claim that Jacqueline once hit Caroline.

Dina not only confirmed it, but she explained how it happened. According to Dina, the incident happened years ago, a little after Jacqueline gave birth to her and Chris’ first child, CJ, who is now 14 years old. Dina said that one day, she got a call from Chris asking her to come over and take the baby away, as he and Jacqueline were fighting and he didn’t want the baby around it. As for what Chris and Jacqueline were fighting about, Dina didn’t say. Dina did say that she thinks that Jacqueline may have had postpartum depression.

“They got into a fight… So Jacqueline lost her her mind, I think there was a little postpartum involved and I think she’ll admit that… so there was an incident that happened at the house where Chris was like, ‘You need to come and just like take the baby out of here. We’re fighting, we’re fighting pretty bad.'”

Dina continued to explain that she stayed at Chris and Jacqueline’s house and watched the baby a bit. She then went back to Caroline’s house, where she was living at the time, and told Caroline what happened. Caroline then went over to Chris and Jacqueline’s house, only for Jacqueline to punch her right in the face immediately upon opening the door.

“I go back to Caroline’s house and she’s like ‘What’s going on?’ and I’m like, ‘They’re fighting pretty bad so Chris just wanted the baby out of the house because they were screaming and whatever,’ and she was like, ‘I’m gonna go take care of this.’ So she went over there and I think Jacqueline just opened the door and punched her right in the face, like, ‘This is none of your business.'”

When Heather asked whether it was a real, closed-fist punch, Dina said yes. Dina then said that she’s not exactly sure what happened right after.

“She was stunned because we don’t fight like that…I think that’s kind of when Caroline went in and said, ‘We need to all calm down.’ I don’t remember, she could’ve just left and went back to the house.”

As for whether Caroline actually had a bruise from the punch, Dina said she doesn’t think so, before admitting that she has the worst memory. Dina did say, however, that it didn’t take long before Jacqueline and Caroline moved past the incident.

During the podcast interview, Dina Manzo, besides confirming Teresa Giudice’s claim that Jacqueline Laurita once punched Caroline Manzo in the face, also revealed exactly what led to the demise of her sibling relationship with Caroline so many years ago. Dina explained that former co-star Danielle Staub went to her ex-husband, her daughter Lexi’s father, and told him that he has a viable court case against Bravo for which he can get money because he didn’t sign any contract allowing Lexi to be filmed for the show.

Dina explained that Danielle at the time was being sued by her ex-husband because he didn’t sign contracts allowing their children to appear on the show. Dina said that her ex didn’t sign a contract for Lexi either but he was okay with Lexi appearing on the show.

When Dina found out what was going on, she told everyone to not bring it up at the reunion show, because she didn’t want Lexi dragged into any drama and speculation, and everyone promised not to. Dina explained that her ex never even seriously entertained the idea of suing Bravo and she was never in jeopardy of losing custody of Lexi.

As it turned out, Caroline did hint at it at the Season 1 reunion show. Caroline yelled at Danielle for “what [she] did to Dina’s daughter.” “You know what you did!” Caroline screamed.

Why did Caroline hint at what Danielle did regarding Lexi, despite Dina asking her not to? According to Dina, Caroline did it for the show after producers told her to.

“Mid-reunion, production pulled us aside and said, ‘This is boring. No one’s gonna watch the show ever again if everybody’s all kumbaya, something needs to happen.’ They left me and Danielle on the couch when they had that conversation with everybody but I was told later that it happened… Caroline told them against my will, ‘Guess what Danielle did.’ So now they’re like, ‘You need to bring it up.'”

When talk at the reunion show turned to why Caroline wouldn’t forgive Danielle when even Dina forgave her, that’s when Caroline accused Danielle of doing something unforgivable to Lexi. Dina admitted that she saw red when Caroline went back on her word.

“In my mind I’m like, ‘She’s not doing this. She’s not going there.’ I was like, I saw red, I saw black… when we left I just looked at her and said, ‘So this [the show] is more important than my daughter?'”

Dina revealed that after that reunion show, she had to pull Lexi out of her school and put her in a different school because of all the harassment and speculation over exactly what Danielle did to her.

Dina admitted that was the beginning of the downfall of her and Caroline’s relationship.

“That was the beginning of the downfall of our relationship. Where fame goes to people’s heads very quickly, especially when it’s an overnight sensation.”

Caroline Manzo and Dina Manzo actually reconciled over the holiday season in 2014. During Caroline’s Watch What Happens Live appearance this past September, she revealed that she and Dina were estranged yet again and put the blame on Dina. As the Inquisitr reported, Dina, immediately lashed out at Caroline in a series of tweets. Shortly after that, Jacqueline Laurita commented on a Snapchat video that it was sad that Dina and Caroline were estranged again but that her own relationship with Dina was still fine. In October, Teresa Giudice said during her own Watch What Happens Live appearance that she knows why Dina and Caroline aren’t talking again.

[Featured Image by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images]

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