Looks like Danielle Staub is going to return to “Real Housewives of New Jersey.” Flip a table if you think this is going to end well.
Bravo has been finalizing contracts and going over possible storylines with cast members for season eight of “RHONJ,” sources tell NJ.com. Usmagazine.com reports that Staub is definitely on board.
Staub, who has been campaigning hard via social media for a comeback, tells NJ.com she can’t comment, and Bravo never comments on casting until taping for the season has wrapped.
Staub was a single mother of two teenaged daughters living in Wayne when she was cast in the first season of “RHONJ” as a pal of Jacqueline Laurita of Franklin Lakes. But her salacious past as a stripper and her criminal record — as a party girl living in Miami, she was involved in the kidnapping for ransom of a young man, but only pleaded guilty to extortion, for which she received five years’ probation — were revealed on the show, leading to an iconic confrontation with co-star Teresa Giudice in which a table hurtled into pop culture history.
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Marginalized by the rest of the cast, Staub, who now lives in Edgewater, says she left the show after the second season to spare her daughters, who were bullied over her mother’s infamy, more trauma. Ratings for the show peaked in 2012, and while Giudice’s prolonged legal drama, including a year-long prison stint for Teresa and a 41-month prison sentence for husband Joe for fraud, continues to make headlines, the last couple of seasons have failed to recapture the momentum of the early years.
Giudice, ironically, is helping pave the way for Staub’s return, meeting with her for a well-publicized yoga session last year, later telling Andy Cohen this: “I feel like she never tried to hurt me in any way maliciously, so I just wanted her to know that.”
The rest of the season 7 cast — Giudice, her sister-in-law Melissa Gorga, Laurita, Dolores Catania and Siggy Flicker — are all expected to return.
Vicki Hyman may be reached at vhyman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickihy or like her on Facebook. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook, and check out Remote Possibilities, the TV podcast from Vicki Hyman and co-host Erin Medley on iTunes, Stitcher or Spreaker, or listen below or here.
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