Spilling secrets!
Tamra Judge is opening up about long-running issues with former Real Housewives of Orange County costar Gretchen Rossi.
It’s no secret that Tamra and Gretchen have had their fair share of ups and downs over the years. The major issues in their rocky friendship stemmed from Tamra’s claim that Gretchen was cheating on her fiancé Jeff Beitzel, who was 24 years her senior and was dying of cancer.
While Tamra aired out her issues with Gretchen on RHOC there are some major parts of the story that she kept quiet about until now.
In the new tell-all book Not All Diamonds and Rosé: The Inside Story of the Real Housewives From the People Who Lived It, Tamra reveals that during season 4 of RHOC she caught newbie Gretchen “kissing” another man.
“Gretchen and I were good for a while,” Judge said in the book. “The problem was, Vicki [Gunvalson], Jeana Keough, and I were out at an event at the St. Regis one night, and we saw Gretchen there with this younger guy, sitting on his lap and kissing him,” Tamra explained.
She claimed that she approached Gretchen about the incident while also questioning where Gretchen’s engagement ring was however Gretchen brushed off the concern.
“She said, ‘Oh, it’s in my purse, it’s too big and it keeps falling off,'” Tamra recalls.
Tamra says Gretchen later confided in her about her relationship with Jeff.
“We had our first heart-to-heart,” Tamra said. “She told me, ‘Listen, I met Jeff, we dated off and on, it wasn’t a great relationship. We were broken up and then got back together. Had I known that he was going to get leukemia and I’d have to be his caregiver, I would have left a long time ago.'”
She ultimately decided to not say “a word” about Gretchen’s incident with the other man.
“I thought it was really brave of her to tell me that,” she said. “So I never repeated it, never said a word about it while we were filming.”
However, the man, later identified as Jay Photoglou, contacted Tamra and claimed to be Gretchen’s boyfriend. Tamra says so much went down off-camera that ultimately led to her calling out Gretchen for cheating on Jeff at the season 4 reunion.
“As the season went on, it got a little disgusting to me to see her playing this role as if she’s engaged and in love with this poor man who’s dying, knowing full well that she didn’t care about him,” Tamra said.
“I was just so mad because so much stuff happened off-camera, and on-camera Gretchen didn’t want to admit any of it,” she continued. “That’s why we continued to fight as time went on. I felt like I was loyal to what she had told me about Jeff. I never repeated it, but knowing that I knew that, she treated me as if I was out to get her.”
“We just never recovered from that first-season fight,” Tamra recalled. “But the drama between us was good for the show.”
RHOC is expected to return for season 16 in late 2021.
Thoughts on Tamra’s claims? Do you think Gretchen cheated on Jeff? Sound off below!
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Source: PEOPLE