The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 12 premiere ended with a bang – and not a good one!
At Teresa Giudice’s pool party Margaret Josephs and Jennifer Aydin got into a heated fight that lead to a MAJOR revelation.
Jennifer was gushing about how great Bill is because he makes all this money which allows her to live a wonderful life and stay home to raise her kids. She calls Marge jealous and insists she’s still pissed about the snake comment.
Marge on the other hand kept trying to tell her it wasn’t about the money – it was about Jen acting as if her life is sooo perfect when everyone knows that it’s not. According to Marge, Jennifer is unhappy and not being honest about her life.
She adds that Bill is spending his life making up for mistakes he’s made in the past.
The fight continues to intensify with Marge finally blurting out that Bill cheated on Jennifer over ten years ago.
“Bill had that affair with the office manager for two years,” Marge blurts out to which Jen fires back, “She’s not an office manager, she was a pharmaceutical rep, you f–k. If you could get the facts straight.”
Meanwhile, Jennifer reveals to Page Six that her daughter Olivia Aydin found out about Bill’s past infidelity on TikTok.
“We had a blogger leak this awful storyline and somebody made a TikTok on it,” she recounts. “My sweet little Olivia — who threw a beautiful anniversary party for us [on ‘RHONJ’ Season 11] to show how her parents are still in love — saw a TikTok that said ‘the big secret.’”
Jennifer says Olivia started defending her parents in the comments of the post, writing, “This is my mommy and daddy and this is not true!”
“She came to me to show me her comment and said, ‘Look mommy, I’m defending you from all of these lies,’” Jennifer says, noting that she asked Olivia to delete her comment since sadly the accusations about Bill were true.
While Jennifer was pregnant with their fourth child, Christian, 10, Bill had an affair with a pharmaceutical rep.
“I said, ‘It’s for the show and it’s not good if we release things, so maybe we shouldn’t draw attention.’ I had her take it down that way,” Jennifer recalled.
“I sat her down and I kept my composure because I realized [my kids] will react to however Mommy’s acting,” she says. “I put on a brave face and said, ‘Listen, Daddy did a bad thing. But that doesn’t mean that he’s a bad person. And when we love people, we forgive them when they make mistakes. And I’ve forgiven him and I’m OK.’ She wasn’t upset because I wasn’t upset.”
Since then Bill and Jennifer have discussed the accusations with all of their children including son Justin, 17, daughter Gabriella, 14, and son Jacob, 12.
“My husband told Justin. I was in the room, and Justin kind of was almost irritated, like, ‘I don’t ever want to talk about this ever again.’ He’s not watching this season. My Gabriella, she was more crushed. She felt very betrayed and was angry for a bit but we got through that. And my two [younger] boys, they’re neither here or there,” the RHONJ star says.
“And Olivia, now that she sees that Mommy’s OK with it, she’ll be like, ‘Mommy, do they know about “the secret,” too?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, but it’s not a secret anymore and we’re OK with talking about it. And she’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right,’” she elaborates. “So remember, children will learn by example. As long as I’m cool and not breaking down, I think they’ll be OK.”
Jennifer admits she NEVER intended for this skeleton to come out of her closet. She notes that she STILL doesn’t know how Margaret came to know the long-held secret.
“You do not want Margaret to be your enemy. She is a digger and she could find out things. She’s got a big Rolodex of people in her friend group. I wouldn’t put anything past her. She’s very focused when she wants to find out something about somebody,” says Jennifer.
According to Jennifer, she “never once” told ANYONE about Bill’s affair let alone her RHONJ costars.
“I never told a soul. I didn’t tell my parents, I didn’t tell my cousins, I didn’t tell my sister, I didn’t tell my best friend,” she explains. “I put it in the vault and threw away the key. I pretended it never happened. I have never brought it up as a dig. Because when you decide to forgive somebody, you really have to forgive it and never bring it up. Otherwise, your relationship is not going to work.”
While Bill was “embarrassed” by his infidelity and was “uncomfortable” talking about it onscreen but agreed to do so for his wife.
“He supported me in the sense of letting me share our story, which I think is very brave of him,” she says. “And I told him if we were able to get through it when it happened 10 years ago, we’ll be able to get through it now.”
Today, the RHONJ couple is in “a great space”
“I didn’t want to be the one to bring it up and ever talk about it because that would be at the expense of my children and it wasn’t worth it for me. But since [Margaret] did bring it up and since I do have to talk about it, I’m going to use it as therapy and find it cathartic and therapeutic,” she admits. “Signing up for this show, that’s what I agreed to do — to show the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s not easy.”
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
