Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice shared the candid prologue to her upcoming fifth book, Standing Strong, courtesy via Us Weekly. Check out the full excerpt — titled "My 'Glamourous' Life" — below, and pick up Standing Strong when it hits bookstores on Tuesday, October 3!
I took two shots of espresso before leaving the house so I didn't fall asleep while driving to the airport to pick up my oldest daughter, Gia, who was returning home with her high school team after a weekend cheerleading competition in Orlando.
I'm so proud of all my daughters, but because Gia is the oldest, she's really stepped up and helped out our family in ways that no sixteen-year-old should ever have to. I was so excited to see her, even though it'd been only two days.
I blasted the radio in the car so loud it was deafening. It'd been a very long day, but then again, it seemed as if every day was just as long, a virtual repeat of the day before.
It was as if I was running on a hamster wheel that never stopped. Around and around I went, running full speed, but I couldn't seem to get ahead. I needed a break, but I couldn't seem to catch one.
The day stayed for me earlier than most, about twenty-four hours prior, when my seventy-three-year-old father, who now lives with me (more on that later), came into my bedroom – not long after I'd returned home from a friend's place in Connecticut – and woke me up, asking me to take him to the hospital. He had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop and he was also coughing up blood. It wasn't the first time this had happened.
I couldn't believe I was only a few weeks away from my forty-fifth birthday. I couldn't believe I'd just buried my mother. I couldn't believe my husband was in prison. I couldn't believe that I went to prison.
Recently a close friend of mine suggested that I go see someone, a therapist, to try and sort things out. I wish I had the time, but sadly I don't. And I'm not sure if I'd even know where to begin or if it would even help. Are my problems the type that can be solved by sitting across from someone for an hour every week? Lying down on some stranger's couch and telling him or her my deepest, darkest secrets. Who are they to judge me? I'm not someone who opens up easily. Or, at least I haven't been in the past. I guess I just feel like my time would be better spent getting things done for my family.
My husband, Joe, is currently serving a forty-one-month sentence, but you already know that, just like you know that I spent eleven and a half months of my life inside a federal prison camp for women in Danbury, Connecticut. (And if you didn't know that, you should read my last book, Turning the Tables.)
So there I sat on that particular Sunday at 4:00 a.m. in the ER waiting room, reading Joe's email from late Saturday night, just a few hours before, asking me in a not-so-polite way where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing at that moment.
I called my lawyer, Jim Leonard – who also handles a lot of my professional commitments – and screamed into the phone, “Jim, did you know I'm going to MetLife Stadium for this event today?! How many people are coming to this thing?”
“Seriously, what time will I be done?” I asked, because I'm always thinking about the next place I have to be. There's always a child to be dropped off or picked up. Or another work obligation.
“When you're done signing books and taking pictures,” he responded. “Let's hope you're there all day. That will mean you sold a lot of books. Also, while you're there, look for Jimmy Hoffa's body; they say he's buried there somewhere.”
“Sure,” I said, prying my eyes open from what I'd hoped would be a longer moment of silence. I put on a half smile, as he met my weary gaze in his rearview mirror.
“Do you think when we stop I could take a picture with you?I would love to send it to my family and friends back home in India,” he said. “They won't believe that I had a real life movie star in my car today.”
I felt like telling him, Buddy, if my life is a movie right now, it's a f--kin' horror movie that should be titled What Else Could Possibly Go Wrong?
I'm not sure he knew the difference, or even cared. He just smiled and said to me, with a big toothy grin, “Such a glamorous life you have, God bless you.”
Afterward I went home, quickly got changed, and ran around like a lunatic getting things in order for my seven-year-old, Audriana's, communion, which was one week away. By the time I was done with all the prep work, I had to pick up my eleven-year-old, Milania, from her friend's house before driving to my own friend's house in Connecticut. Once I got home later that night, I passed out.
When my father woke me up at 3:00 a.m. about going to the hospital, I still had on a full face of makeup and my fake eyelashes. Miraculously, I've mastered the art of sleeping in such a way that my hair doesn't get messed up. Joe used to tell me I looked like a mummy when I was sleeping.
As luck would have it, after some quick tests the doctor was able to stop my father's nosebleed and, once he'd examined him, we were sent home later in the morning.
I dropped off my father and headed back out to the supermarket to pick up chicken cutlets, raviolis, and a variety of vegetables so that I could make a nice salad to eat with our Sunday dinner around two o'clock.
By that night, I was really happy to have Gia home from Orlando – when I picked her up she was so excited to see me – and I was obviously relieved that my father didn't have to be admitted to the hospital. Unfortunately, even though we were finally all together, we would be apart again very soon, as I was scheduled to leave the next day for a week in Italy to film for The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
They were admitting him. I was in a panic. Over the last few months I had spent so much time in hospitals, I felt like an extra on Grey's Anatomy.
I called Jim at 7:00 a.m. and hold him, “My father is in the hospital, tell them I can't go to Italy.”
Jim, always a calming force in my life when he's not busting my chops, said, “Let's give it a few hours and see how things are then. You can make up your mind a little bit later, when we have more information. How does that sound?”
We got off the phone and, immediately, he called Lucilla D'Agostino, the executive producer of Real Housewives of New Jersey, who was already in Milan with the entire production crew. Jim briefed her on the situation regarding my father.
I'm about to get very real. More than I ever have before. No holding back. No glossing over. No smiling through the pain. I'm digging deep, opening up, and putting it all out there. I'm spilling my true feelings about what's gone down in the last couple of years.