Real Housewives Of New Jersey star Jackie Goldschneider is preparing for the season 11 premiere on Wednesday, but in looking ahead to future seasons, the lawyer is giving her ‘thumbs up’ to welcoming Caroline Manzo back to the cast. “I feel like everybody on this cast — and it’s the best cast ever — but everybody has some sort of allegiance to Teresa (Giudice). They’re either a family member or friends from childhood, so nobody goes up against her except me,” Jackie explained on the HollywoodLife Podcast. “I have no fear of going up against her, but I feel like the old school Jersey girls stood their ground. And Caroline, especially, I would love to have her back. I’ve never met her. I’ve never even spoken to her. But, I’ve been a fan since day one. So I like Caroline, I wouldn’t mind that at all.”
Last season, Jackie and Teresa’s friendship came to a peaceful pause, but all that seems to have derailed this season after watching the rollercoaster of a trailer. At one point, we see Jackie even take a break from filming to take care of herself and family. “What happened this season for me was something that made me question whether or not this group of women were the friends that I thought they were. And I needed to really authentically in my own life, figure that out,” she explained. “I needed to do that with my husband, because this affected him too. And so I took a step back and took a minute to really talk to my family and see how we wanted to approach this and what we wanted to do with it.”
The result after her brief pause, which Bravo fans are excited to see, is a bold Jackie, who grabs the second half of the season by the reigns and shows off a new side of herself. “I love being on the show, even through the hard parts. And there are some hard parts. I do love being on the show,” she gushed. “I wouldn’t say alliances have shifted tremendously. I will say that the the season is not all the heaviness and drama that you see in the trailer, there’s also a lot of fun and a lot of light moments and a lot of partying. You’re going to spend quite a bit of this season laughing along with us and having fun with us.”
This season of RHONJ was filmed in August, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, which made it difficult for the ladies to travel. Luckily, production saw zero COVID cases which interrupted filming, and Jackie revealed the ladies traveled to Lake George and the Jersey Shore, which she said was one of her favorite trips she’s ever taken with the franchise.
“The husbands come to the Jersey Shore, and those husbands, let me tell you, there are no party lines, there is no division, they love each other!” Jackie laughed. “They’re all on a group text with each other, like every day, not filming. They all talk to each other and they really really love each other, it doesn’t matter what’s going on with us. So that’s fun.”
She added, “Going abroad has nothing on the views from Melissa Gorga‘s house and the views of the Jersey Shore. I will tell you it was so beautiful. That whole trip, we had the best weather and we were all outdoors. So, I don’t think that any any part of the show will suffer from not going on an airplane.”
Tune in to RHONJ season 11, premiering on Bravo on Wednesday, February 17th at 9 PM ET!
