Margaret Wanted Me & Jen to Quit RHONJ

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Jackie Goldschneider said Margaret Josephs wanted her and Jennifer Fessler to quit Real Housewives of New Jersey if Luis Ruelas returned next season, and hinted that Margaret views the show as a “game.”

Last season, Margaret claimed Luis – the husband of her on-screen nemesis Teresa Giudice – hired a private investigator to dig up information on castmates, and called her son at work supposedly to get dirt. Margaret is close with Fessler, and was previously close with Jackie – before their friendship dissolved.

“Margaret wanted, if Louie was coming back to the show, she didn’t want me and Jenn Fessler to come back to the show,” said Jackie on Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast. “She wanted to leave and she wanted all of us to leave together.”

She claimed Fessler agreed to this plan, which Fessler herself confirmed while speaking to ET.

“What happened was — and I think the first episode, maybe you saw me saying to Margaret, ‘I told you that if you don’t want to be around these people again, neither will I …,’” said Fessler to the outlet. “And what I meant by that was, if you’re not gonna go back and do the show again, then I’m not going back and [won’t] do the show again.”

But Jackie never signed on.

“Jenn Fessler said, ‘OK, I will do that for you.’ And I said, ‘I will not do that for you. I love you, but I’m not leaving my job because you don’t like somebody,’” recalled Jackie, who suspects this triggered the beginning of the end of her friendship with Margaret.

“I think that started everything.”

As viewers know, all four castmates – Margaret, Fessler, Jackie and Luis – decided to return to the show.

So why did Margaret stay after Luis came back?

“I think she felt like she could do the show without filming with Teresa. And I think she also was looking at it a little bit as a game, you know, or a competition show,” said Jackie. “Less of a friend group and more of a competition show where, ‘If I get enough people onto my side, I’ll win.’ So I think that also contributed to the disconnect this season, unfortunately.”

However, Jackie indicated that this wasn’t the only reason for the friendship break with Margaret.

“That definitely contributed to it. But I think there was a level of loyalty expected of me. Friendships should be easy. They should contribute joy and ease and comfort to your life. They shouldn’t be you having to answer for everything and [have] blind loyalty,” she explained. “It shouldn’t be like that and I think a lot was expected of me as a friend.”