Could Caroline Manzo be returning to The Real Housewives of New Jersey? She recently said she’d “never” go back, following her early exit from The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, but Andy Cohen is now revealing that he tried getting her to make a comeback in season 13 of the Bravo series. In his new book, The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up, Andy says he called Caroline just days before cameras started rolling again in late May 2022.
“Did a bunch of work calls on the Long Island Expressway [on May 26], including a long one with Caroline Manzo about coming back,” he wrote in his book. “She is ACTIVATED about Teresa [Giudice] and feels a ‘moral obligation to tell this woman that she can’t get away with her stuff.'” Andy didn’t think they’d be able to “make a deal with her” because “the gap between her expectations and our reality is too wide,” but he still wanted to try.
Over the years, Caroline has said she turned down “insulting” offers from Bravo for her return, but on May 18, 2022, Caroline said she was interested in “knocking the s***” out of Teresa “verbally”. So maybe Andy thought there was some newfound hope? He also said he thought her potential return “would be an incredible moment in what could be Teresa’s last season, not to mention a major confrontation eight years in coming.”
Weeks before his call to Caroline, who left the show after season 5, Andy had a private chat with Teresa and thought season 13, which is currently airing, might be her last. He wrote, “We had a frank moment [while filming the season 12 reunion in March 2022] about how much longer she can stay on this show and feel like it’s healthy for her. She seems over it now, and has for a while. She looked a little misty-eyed having the conversation. I said she might decide to leave and come back in a few years. Hard to get off a train, whether or not you really wanna be on.”
Whether or not it’d be her last season, Andy still wanted to call Teresa and ask how she’d feel about Caroline returning to the show given their complicated history with each other. So after talking to Caroline in late May 2022, Andy called Teresa. “I thought she would be okay about it, and then by the end of the night I thought I was an idiot for thinking she would be okay with it.”
But on May 31, Andy spoke to Teresa again, and he felt she “was more receptive to the idea of Caroline coming back.” Sadly, he was mistaken. There was a misunderstanding, and on June 9, Teresa called Andy “to say she didn’t agree to filming with Caroline on RHONJ.” He explained, “I guess I took our quick conversation last week as a yes, but she heard it totally differently. I said I’d call her back, then got carried away with life stuff. I texted her Sunday, saying, ‘I got hung up—I’ll call later.’ She replied, ‘I never got a call from you, what are you talking about?’ I texted back that I said I got HUNG UP with other shit, not hung up on.”
A few days later, on June 13, Andy spoke to Teresa again. “I told her I didn’t think we’d be able to make a deal with Caroline but she should let us go through the process.” In the end, they couldn’t “make a deal with Caroline, so that’s that,” he said. Caroline later appeared at BravoCon in Oct. 2022, and she confirmed to HollywoodLife that she was invited to return to RHONJ. Teresa didn’t seem too thrilled about it. But because of the “nostalgia” Andy felt while being around Caroline at the event, he asked her if she’d join RHUGT. I “called her, and she said she’s in. I’m excited to get her back in the mix!,” he wrote.
Things didn’t go so well for Caroline, though. Just days into filming the fourth season of RHUGT, it was reported that Brandi Glanville touched Caroline inappropriately and kissed her without her consent. Brandi has vehemently denied these claims, but both cast members left the show early and an investigation commenced. It’s not yet clear what resulted from that investigation, but in follow-up interviews, Caroline said she’d “never” return to RHONJ or RHUGT.
RHONJ is currently airing Tuesdays at 9pm ET on Bravo, while Peacock hasn’t yet revealed the premiere date for season 4 of RHUGT.