The Real Housewives of Rhode Island star Rulla Nehme Pontarelli is opening up about where she stands with Jo-Ellen Tiberi after a tense season filled with personal drama and trust issues.
In an interview with Parade, Rulla said the two are currently keeping things civil, but that doesn’t mean their relationship is repaired.
“We’re cordial,” Rulla revealed. “Jo-Ellen and I are cordial. Throughout everything that we may have seen and not yet seen, I chose to try to be amicable and take the high road despite everything that was being thrown my way that maybe was not so nice.”
Much of the tension stems from how photos connected to her husband Brian’s affair were handled within the group. Rulla explained that while she appreciated the truth coming out, she was hurt by how it spread.
“It’s not the fact that she was the one to sort of expose or present the pictures. I was actually very grateful for that… I wasn’t grateful that those photos circulated around the group before they even got to me… I would never do that to her if the situation were reversed.”
Even with that perspective, Rulla admitted the situation changed how she sees Jo Ellen.
“I can’t trust her at this stage,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust her, unfortunately.”
Rulla also addressed the legal situation involving her husband and the woman tied to the affair, pushing back on how the story has been portrayed.
“So, unfortunately, I can’t speak too much to it,” Rulla shared. “The one thing that I can say is the NDA is a result of something else that was going on because she had been a minority owner. He had made her another minority owner in the business. So it had to do with business matters, and a prior issue, not a don’t talk because of the show situation. So that’s sort of been taken out of context.”
She also responded to a rumor brought up on the show by Alicia Carmody, which claimed Brian had cheated on his first wife with Rulla when that wife was Alicia’s Spanish teacher.
“I was like, Alicia, are you kidding me? You couldn’t have asked me like two years ago?” she said. “So, I actually know the Spanish teacher and admire her, and we get along very well. I had come along, but a year-and-a-half, two years after Brian was already divorced… so that is a rumor. It is completely false. And anybody that knows us can verify that that was never true. No, he did not cheat with me. And I did not participate in breaking up that marriage.”
The drama adds more context to what viewers are seeing play out on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island, where personal issues are quickly becoming group conflicts and trust between cast members is starting to break down.
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