

Read More: Reality TV Has Reshaped Our World, Whether We Like It or Not “Think about it: 13 years later, it’s still something we’re talking about.” “I knew that it was going to be cemented in our pop-culture history,” King says. More than a decade later, he says he knew in that moment that the scene would make a lasting impact. She shoved her hands beneath the table and flipped it, screaming, “Prostitution whore!” at her castmate.Ĭarlos King, now the CEO of Kingdom Reign Entertainment and a longtime producer of The Real Housewives of New Jersey and The Real Housewives of Atlanta, was on set when it happened. When a heated argument about the origin of the rumors broke out, Giudice reached her boiling point. The cast’s villain, Danielle Staub, confronted the other women for gossiping about her past by placing a copy of Cop Without a Badge, a damning book about her ex-husband, on the table. Giudice, who had been depicted for most of the season as a sweet and devoted wife, mother, and satellite to the Manzo family around whom much of the drama revolved, was in the middle of hosting a dinner party at a local restaurant. And no moment has shaped the Housewives universe more definitively than when Teresa Giudice flipped a fully loaded dinner table in a fit of rage in the 2009 season 1 finale of The Real Housewives of New Jersey.Īlthough the table-flip moment has become an indelible part of the blueprint followed by many aspiring reality stars who lean into belligerence as a way to get attention-one previously popularized by the women of Bad Girls Club and confrontational daytime talk shows like Jerry Springer-it came as a truly shocking twist during the season finale of a franchise extension that viewers were still unsure about. With its ostentatious display of wealth, its conflict-addicted cast members, and its petty yet over-the-top storylines, Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise embodies the flashy melodrama that dominates the contemporary reality TV landscape.
