Teresa and Joe Giudice face a fate worse than prison — getting their reality TV show canceled.
In the wake of their federal fraud indictments, Bravo executives are debating the future of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” on which Teresa is the fiercest of the fraus, sources told the Daily News.
The show about the lavish lifestyles of five Garden State gals is reality TV king Andy Cohen’s baby and has been a ratings hit.
But the show has become a headache for Bravo in light of the recent flurry of bad publicity about the Giudices.
“Nobody wants to see their talent in this kind of a situation,” a network source told The News.
Teresa has, in recent months, been pitching her own spinoff show to Bravo honchos, sources said.
“They are not interested,” said an insider. “Bravo only spins off happy situations — marriages, baby news. Not prison.”
There was no official comment from Bravo.
Word that the Jersey housewives might have a target on their backs came a day after Joe and his foul-mouthed parents engaged in boorish behavior before and after he and Teresa made their first appearance in Newark Federal Court.
Joe slapped a news camera out of the way, his parents swore at reporters, and his dad, Frank, capped it all by mooning the shutterbugs.
Teresa is in denial about the charges, which could send her and her husband to prison for 50 years, sources said.
“Teresa thinks people are coming after her because she is famous,” one source said. “She honestly thinks she has done nothing wrong.”
Neither Teresa, 41, nor her 43-year-old husband have entered a plea. And Teresa is letting Joe direct their defense strategy, sources said.
“She is old-fashioned and thinks her husband knows best,” a source said.
While Joe supported the family for years running everything from a stucco company to a pizzeria, Teresa now brings home the bacon.
The News reported Wednesday she gets paid $33,000 an episode and makes thousands more promoting her cookbooks and a specialty food line called Skinny Italian.
Recently, Teresa was hoping to give her show a sweet plot twist before things went sour with the feds.
Just days before she and Joe were indicted, they were scouting locations for a “cupcake cafe,” sources said.
Teresa saw the shop generating new plot lines for her Bravo show along the lines of “2 Broke Girls.” That CBS sitcom is about two Williamsburg, Brooklyn, waitresses — one formerly rich, the other always poor — who scrape up enough dough to open a cupcake shop that quickly goes bust.
The Giudices had zeroed in on a restaurant for lease located in a strip mall just a mile from their tacky $1.7 million mansion in Montville Township, N.J., the sources said. Last week, Teresa came by herself to scope out the site, they said.
Alas, there is already a bakery that sells cupcakes and other treats in the strip mall, along with a salon, barber shop and a deli.
Teresa likely did not come up with the cupcake cafe idea on her own.
Kathy Wakile, her cousin and castmate, has been trying to launch a career as a pastry chef for the past couple of seasons. She is often seen creating desserts for parties and pop-up shops on the show. And she just inked a cookbook deal.
That Teresa would filch an idea from a castmate will come as no surprise to regular “Housewives” watchers.
Teresa frequently feuds with sister-in-law and castmate Melissa Gorga. But Gorga noted on the show that after she wrote a self-help book about keeping a “hot and happy marriage,” Teresa began speaking at conventions about having a happy and healthy marriage.
Jon Fellgraff, an architect who claims Joe still owes him $7,000 for work he did, said it’s a marriage made in hell. He told The Daily Mail that Joe treated Teresa like a “lowly housewife” before she got rich.
“He was the boss,” he said. “She would try to speak and he would put her down.”
Teresa and Joe are charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, bank fraud, making false statements on loan applications and bankruptcy fraud.
Joe is also accused of failing to file tax returns for 2004 through 2008.
Some neighbors complained that Teresa and Joe are as surly in real life as they are on the show and that their house has become a favorite spot for gawkers.
“A family from Indiana driving to New York stopped by wanting to know where their house was,” one local business owner said. “My sister-in-law from Florida came up and wanted to see their house. I said, ‘Let’s drive by!’ “
Still, the Giudice’s have fans in the area, especially at A & A Fine Foods, an Italian gourmet deli in nearby Lincoln Park, where they’re regulars. An autographed photo of Teresa in a slinky dress leaning seductively against a convertible hangs proudly in the entryway.
“She used to come by all the time before she got the show,” said owner Alfonso Ciampa. “Now they’re more low-profile because when they come in, people are gawking and bothering them for autographs.”
With Cristina Everett
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