Over the years, we’ve seen Joe Gorga have some pretty extreme meltdowns on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, but this viral video of him going off on his tenant has brought us to new levels of New Jersey madness. The neck veins are bulging. The face is red. Every other word is the F-bomb. It’s an intense few minutes, and it all stems from unpaid rent.
TMZ obtained the video recorded by a tenant who Joe claims hasn’t paid rent in years. The video shows the tenant and Joe arguing back and forth from their vehicles, but then things get extra heated when Joe gets out of his truck to approach the tenant.
“You had nowhere to live, and I gave you a f–king house,” Joe screamed. “F–king loser, f–king loser, pay your f–king rent, a–hole,” he continued. “Call me f–king Daddy, motherf–er, because I’ve been supporting you for four-and-a-half years.”
The tenant argued back, claiming that the state of New Jersey has been paying Joe through a COVID-19 relief program. So, according to the tenant, he only owes unpaid rent dating back to January, which is still quite a long time to go without paying your rent.
In the video, Joe alleged that the tenant had been selling drugs in his building, and the tenant claimed that Joe had been coming at him with a sledgehammer. Unfortunately, neither the drugs nor the sledgehammer made an appearance in the video, so it’s hard to say who’s telling the truth there.
To get to the bottom of what’s going on here, TMZ spoke to Joe’s lawyer, who claims that the tenant owes roughly $50,000 in back rent. The lawyer admits that Joe did collect $40,000 in COVID rental assistance from the state, but the unpaid rent predates the pandemic. Allegedly, this tenant hasn’t paid his own rent since October 2018, which is why Joe believes he’s still owed $50,000.
If the tenant hasn’t paid rent for that long, screaming at him in a parking lot probably won’t get the check written any faster. Still, Joe says he has no regrets about the confrontation. In fact, he double-downed on it, according to Page Six.
“It’s just an excuse to just beat the system. That’s why I’m upset,” Joe explained. “I just don’t do well with people that don’t do the right thing in life and don’t hustle and don’t work and don’t try, and so I’m gonna stand by how I handled it.”
He confessed that he couldn’t hold his anger in, which is pretty evident from the video. But he explained that he wanted the tenant “to feel exactly the way he made me feel.”
“You just don’t do that,” he continued. “The first thing you do is pay for the roof over your head, and he’s the type of guy that likes to take advantage and scam the system.”
Joe claims that the tenant has been dodging his phone calls for ages, so that’s why it all came down to the profanity-laden parking lot confrontation.
“You know what else got me mad is that the man owes me money, you’d think he’d answer the phone,” he said. “I’ve called this guy numerous times. [For] years, he’s been avoiding me. [He] doesn’t even have the decency to pick up the phone and talk to me.”
TELL US – ARE YOU SURPRISED TO SEE JOE GORGA SCREAMING AT HIS TENANT OVER UNPAID RENT? HOW DO YOU THINK THE OTHER RHONJ CAST MEMBERS REACTED TO THE VIDEO?
[Photo Credit: Bravo]