When Teresa Giudice walked down the aisle for the second time, she did it with big hair.
The “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star’s Jersey wedding to Louie Ruelas was Saturday, August 6 at the Park Chateau in East Brunswick.
Photos shared by the RHONJ Obsessed account on Instagram show Giudice in her wedding gown at the ceremony and reception.
Giudice, 50, wore her hair piled high atop her head above an oversized silver tiara (to match the scale of the ‘do), with more hair cascading below. The wedding dress had a ruched bodice, and Giudice sported sheer gloves that reached past her elbows. A long veil trailed her on the bridal runway as she carried a large bouquet of white roses, which also adorned the path and ceremony area.
The Instagram account posted video showing Giudice trying her hand at the drums during the wedding celebration as Ruelas, 47, got on the tambourine and sparklers went off in front of them.
People reports that the nuptials were filmed for an upcoming Bravo special (not for regular “RHONJ” episodes).
Giudice got divorced from her ex-husband Joe Giudice in 2020 after 21 years of marriage, following his deportation to Italy in 2019. She started dating Ruelas in the summer of 2020 and they got engaged in October 2021.
Teresa and Joe’s four daughters were at the wedding — Gia, 21; Milania, 16; Gabriella, 18; and Audriana, 13 — wearing dresses in the dusty rose color of the bridal party.
So were some of Giudice’s “RHONJ” co-stars, like longtime friend Dolores Catania, who grew up with her in Paterson, and Jennifer Aydin, both bridesmaids, and their castmate Jackie Goldschneider (not a bridesmaid).
Though invited, Melissa Gorga, another “RHONJ” star who is Giudice’s sister-in-law, was not there, nor was her husband, Giudice’s brother Joe Gorga, after a spat stemming from the events of a recent reunion episode taping for the reality series, Page Six previously reported.
Another video shows Giudice and Ruelas slow dancing for their “first dance” as smoke from a fog machine billowed around them on the dance floor.
On his Instagram account, Ruelas identifies himself as a father, motivator, philanthropist and warrior — but also an entrepreneur.
The couple lives in Montville (where Giudice formerly lived in another house with Joe Giudice and their children) and met in Ortley Beach.
Other wedding guests included “Real Housewives of Miami” star Alexia Nepola.
Giudice and Ruelas had their rehearsal dinner at The Highlawn in West Orange, again with “RHONJ” mainstays like Catania and Aydin.
Aydin and the restaurant and banquet hall posted photos of the couple and cast members at the event on Instagram (see below).
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.
Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter.
Representatives Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Scott Perry were among the Republican members of Congress who asked President Donald Trump to insulate them from future prosecutions by granting them presidential pardons in the days immediately following the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January last year.
Their names were revealed by the House January 6 select committee hearing on Thursday that focused on Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure the Department of Justice to assist in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger, the Republican select committee member who led the hearing, suggested that seeking pardons implied that his colleagues may have at least suspected they may later face prosecution.
“All I know is if you’re innocent, you’re probably not gonna go out and seek a pardon,” he said.
The select committee played videotaped excerpts from depositions of former Trump White House staffers, who described the Republican members’ efforts to obtain clemency after Mr Trump’s scheme led to an attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to the president, said Mr Gaetz and Mr Brooks had both advocated for a “blanket pardon” for members involved in a December meeting to plan for events on 6 January.
“Mr Gaetz was personally pushing for a pardon and was doing so since early December,” she said in pre-recorded testimony played by the committee.
Ms Hutchinson also said that congressman Jim Jordan talked about congressional pardons but didn’t specifically ask for one. She said of Marjorie Taylor Greene: “I heard she had asked White House Counsel Office for a pardon.”
Former deputy White House counsel Eric Herschmann, who confirmed to the panel that Mr Gaetz asked for a pardon, added: “The general tone was, ‘we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of … the president’s positions on these things.’”
Mr Brooks, an Alabama Republican, requested the pardon in an 11 January 2021 email to Mr Trump’s assistant, Molly Michael, which he wrote was being sent on behalf of himself and Mr Gaetz, a Florida Republican who is reportedly under investigation for sex trafficking. Mr Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any criminal offences.
“It is clear that deep-pocketed and vitriolic Socialist Democrats (with perhaps some liberal Republican help) are going to abuse America’s judicial system by targeting numerous Republicans with sham charges deriving from our recent fight for honest and accurate elections, and speeches related thereto,” Mr Brooks wrote.
Mr Brooks added that he was recommending Mr Trump issue “general (all purpose) pardons” to all of the GOP members of the House and Senate who’d voted against certifying the 2020 election, as well as those who’d signed onto a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to throw out electoral votes from swing states won by Mr Biden.
Letter from Mo Brooks requesting a pardon
(Government document)
The committee’s vice-chair, Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, had previously alleged that others in Mr Trump’s orbit had sought pardons in the wake of the 6 January attack, including “multiple” members of Congress, during the panel’s first public hearing earlier this month.
While the identities of most of the GOP members had remained unknown until now, Ms Cheney had previously revealed that pardons were requested by representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and John Eastman, the former Chapman University law professor who pressured vice president Mike Pence to throw out electoral votes from swing states won by Mr Biden at the 6 January 2021 joint session of Congress at which Mr Biden’s victory was to be certified.
In an email from Mr Eastman to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani sent just days after the attack, the conservative legal scholar wrote: “I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works.”
Nick Akerman, a veteran defence attorney who served as an assistant US attorney in New York and as a deputy special prosecutor during Watergate, told The Independent that a request for a pardon is a strong indicator that the person requesting it knows they have broken the law.
“This is obvious evidence of someone who believes they committed a crime and is concerned about being prosecuted – an innocent person does not ask for a pardon,” he said. “A request for a pardon, when there is not even an investigation going on, is overwhelming evidence of consciousness of guilt.”
Mr Perry, who has denied asking for a pardon, figured prominently in the panel’s Thursday presentation, during which former Trump-era Justice Department officials gave evidence regarding the Pennsylvania Republican’s role in a proposal pitched to Mr Trump by Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer who was then the head of the department’s civil division.
The Pennsylvania Republican had actually introduced Mr Trump to Mr Clark, who encouraged the president to sack the then-acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, and install him atop the DOJ so he could pressure state legislatures to overturn election results in their states based on claims of fraud which the department had already debunked.
After Mr Clark told Mr Rosen he was being elevated to Mr Rosen’s current job, Mr Rosen and other top Justice Department leaders confronted him and Mr Trump in a contentious Oval Office meeting.
One of the former officials who participated in the meeting, former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, described to the hearing how he and the other DOJ leaders told Mr Trump they would resign if he made Mr Clark – an environmental law specialist with no experience as a trial lawyer or prosecutor – their boss.
“I said: Mr President, I would resign immediately. I’m not working one minute for this guy [Mr Clark] who I just declared was completely incompetent.”
He said Mr Trump then turned to Steven Engel, then the head of the DOJ office of legal counsel, and asked if he, too, would resign. In response, he said Mr Engel told the president: “Absolutely I would, Mr President, you would leave me no choice.”
Mr Donoghue said he then told the president he would “lose [his] entire department leadership” if he went through with Mr Clark’s plan.
“Every single agent will walk out on you, your entire department of justice leadership will walk out within hours,” he recalled saying.
The select committee also presented evidence that Mr Trump’s own White House advisers had found that Mr Clark’s proposed actions, including launching investigations into the baseless conspiracy theories being pushed by Mr Trump and his allies and sending the letter to state legislatures urging them to overturn the election, would be illegal.
Mr Herschmann, the former deputy White House counsel, told select committee investigators Mr Clark’s plan was “asinine” and said his reaction was to tell the aspiring acting attorney general it could expose him to criminal charges.
“I said … f***ing a-hole … congratulations: You’ve just admitted your first step you’d take as attorney general would be committing a felony and violating Rule 6-c. You’re clearly the right candidate for this job,” he recalled saying.
Mr Clark, a veteran environmental lawyer who now works for a pro-Trump think tank called the Center for Renewing America, was one of numerous ex-Trump administration officials who were subpoenaed to give evidence before the select committee. He had initially resisted appearing, but when he did show up under the threat of a criminal referral for contempt of congress, he invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times.
The hearing focusing on his conduct in the days leading up to the Capitol attack comes as the department where he once served as a senior official is now investigating him for his role in Mr Trump’s plot to remain in power against the wishes of voters.
According to multiple reports, FBI agents raided Mr Clark’s home on Wednesday pursuant to a search warrant.
Louie Anderson, the genial stand-up comedian, actor and television host who won an Emmy Award for his work on the series “Baskets” and two Daytime Emmys for his animated children’s show, “Life With Louie,” died on Friday in Las Vegas. He was 68.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his longtime publicist, Glenn Schwartz, who said the cause was complications of diffuse large B cell lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.
In an entertainment career that spanned more than four decades, Mr. Anderson had a self-deprecating style that won him legions of fans, among them Henny Youngman and Johnny Carson, whose early support catapulted him to stardom.
In 1981, Mr. Anderson was among the top finishers in a comedy competition hosted by Mr. Youngman, who subsequently hired himas a writer.
Mr. Anderson made his national television debut on “The Tonight Show” with Mr. Carson in 1984, and, as comedians say, he killed. The routine was heavy on jokes about his own weight (which topped 300 pounds at times), and he had the audience roaring from his opening deadpan line: “I can’t stay long. I’m in between meals.”
Afterward, Mr. Carson brought him out for a second bow, a rarity for comics and especially for ones making his debut. As Mr. Anderson told it, Mr. Carson later paid him another high compliment.
“He came by my dressing room on the way to his, stuck his head in and said, ‘Great shot, Louie,’” he told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2002. “Because comics call that a ‘shot’ on ‘The Tonight Show.’ And that was huge for me.”
Mr. Anderson went from earning $500 a week for his stand-up work to making twice that in one night, he said. And film and television work started coming his way, including small roles in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986) and “Coming to America” (1988). In 1987, Showtime broadcast a comedy special that captured him in performance at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
Reviewing the show for The New York Times, John J. O’Connor wrote, “In an age when comedians rely on desperation measures to establish a performing identity — think of Howie Mandel indulging in infantile screaming or Sam Kinison feigning a nervous breakdown — Mr. Anderson has developed a low-keyed act that could fit comfortably into the category of family entertainment.”
He added, “At a time when stand-up comedy is trafficking heavily in insult, hysteria and sexual obsessions, Mr. Anderson seems to have come up with something truly different — old-fashioned, heartwarming humor.”
That would be his bread and butter for his whole career, although he took it in interesting directions. “Life With Louie,” which ran from 1994 to 1998 and won him Daytime Emmys in 1997 and 1998 as outstanding performer in an animated program, was a savvy children’s show that also had an adult following; its title character, a child, dealt with an assortment of problems at home and on the playground.
On “Baskets,” an acclaimed comic drama that ran from 2016 to 2019 and starred Zach Galifianakis, Mr. Anderson, in drag, played the mother of twin brothers played by Mr. Galifianakis. Mr. Anderson was nominated for the supporting actor Emmy for the role three times, winning in 2016.
In a 1996 interview with The Orlando Sentinel, he reflected on his appeal.
“People are comfortable with me onstage,” he said. “There’s nothing hateful about my comedy. I look at it from the humanity standpoint. I’m just kind of like ‘Hey, we’re all in this together,’ and so they feel comfortable inviting me into their living rooms.”
Louis Perry Anderson was born on March 24, 1953, in St. Paul, Minn. His mother, Zella, was a homemaker, and his father, Louis, was a jazz musician.
He graduated from high school in St. Paul and had a job counseling troubled youths when his career path changed as a result of a dare.
“I went out one night with some guys from work and we saw a couple of comedians,” he recounted in a 1987 interview with The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. “I remarked that neither one of them was very funny, and everybody began telling me to get up there myself if I thought I could do it better.
“The joke kind of escalated over time,” he continued, “and finally one night, I did get up onstage. Once I did, I discovered that I liked it a lot. I have been doing it ever since.”
He began working comedy clubs in Minnesota, then branched out to Chicago and other mid-American cities. At the 1981 Midwest Comedy Competition in St. Louis he did well enough to impress the show’s host, Mr. Youngman, who hired him as a writer and boosted his confidence.
“He helped me learn to write really good material, and he encouraged me to stay in comedy,” Mr. Anderson said of Mr. Youngman. “I was at that point where I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next.”
The Carson appearance in 1984 helped make him a headliner, and he worked regularly in Las Vegas and other top comedy cities, touring for a time with Roseanne Barr. A 1996 sitcom, “The Louie Show,” on which he played a psychotherapist. lasted only six episodes despite a supporting cast that included Bryan Cranston, but Mr. Anderson frequently played guest roles on other series and was a fixture on late-night talk shows. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was host of the game show “Family Feud.”
He was also an author. His stand-up comedy drew heavily on his family in lighthearted ways, but his books had a more serious element. “Dear Dad: Letters From an Adult Child” (1989) was a series of letters addressed to his father that dealt with, among other things, his father’s alcoholism.
“I can remember coming home from school and knowing when I walked in the door whether or not you had been drinking — without even seeing anyone,” he wrote. “That’s how sensitive I think I became.”
As his stand-up career progressed, Mr. Anderson dialed back on the jokes about his weight, and his book “Goodbye Jumbo … Hello Cruel World,” published in 1993, was an honest look at his food addiction. “The F Word: How to Survive Your Family” (2002) and “Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother, but You Can Read Them Too” (2018) also had serious intent.
Mr. Anderson was one of 11 children. His survivors include his sisters Lisa and Shanna Anderson, Mr. Schwartz said.
Mr. Anderson said he based parts of his “Baskets” character on his mother. In “Hey Mom,” he addressed her directly.
“I guess I must believe in the afterlife if I’m writing to you and I talk to you and my face is always turned up to the sky,” he wrote. “If there is an afterlife, I hope there’s a big comfortable chair, because I know you like that, and good creamer for your coffee, and a TV showing old reruns.”
Louie Anderson, whose more than four-decade career as a comedian and actor included his unlikely, Emmy-winning performance as mom to twin adult sons in the TV series “Baskets,” died Friday. He was 68.
Anderson died in Las Vegas of complications from cancer, Glenn Schwartz, his longtime publicist, said in a statement to CBS News. Anderson had a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Schwartz said previously.
Actor Louie Anderson attends the 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 18, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.
Frazer Harrison, Getty Images
Anderson won a 2016 Emmy for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Christine Baskets, mother to twins played by Zach Galifianakis. Anderson received three consecutive Emmy nods for his performance.
In 2018, he told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” he took the part seriously. Anderson grew up the 10th of 11 children in a housing project in St. Paul, Minnesota – a sweet-and-sour stew, he called it. His mom was sweet; his dad, an abusive alcoholic, was sour.
“You know, the great thing about my mom was she protected us,” Anderson told correspondent Lee Cowan. “She took all the brunt, and this is such a great repay, and tribute. I get to pay her back.”
Baskets | Season 3 Ep. 6: Christine Smokes Scene | FX by
FX Networks on
YouTube
In 2019, Anderson told CBS Local he never felt closer to his mother, the late Ora Zella Anderson.
“I think she could have been president. I think she was one of those people who could have been anything and, you know, to me she was everything,” Anderson said.
He was a familiar face elsewhere on TV, including as host of a revival of the game show “Family Feud” from 1999 to 2002, and on comedy specials and in frequent late-night talk show appearances.
Anderson voiced an animated version of himself as a kid in “Life With Louie.” He created the cartoon series, which first aired in prime time in late 1994 before moving to Saturday morning for its 1995-98 run. Anderson won two Daytime Emmy Awards for the role.
He made guest appearances in several TV series, including “Scrubs” and “Touched by an Angel,” and was on the big screen in 1988′s “Coming to America” and in last year’s sequel to the Eddie Murphy comedy. Anderson also toured regularly with his stand-up act.
Anderson’s early jobs included counseling troubled children. He told CBS Local he started doing comedy “on a dare” in 1978. In 1981, he won a Midwest comedy competition, where he was spotted by veteran comic Henny Youngman, who was the contest’s host, according to Schwartz.
Anderson worked as a writer for Youngman and then gained onstage experience while crisscrossing the United States. His big break came in 1984 when Johnny Carson, known for showcasing rising comedians on “The Tonight Show,” brought him on to perform.
Anderson told CBS Local he could remember watching Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Richard Pryor on the show and was influenced by their performances. Anderson said his “Tonight Show” appearance boosted his career.
“The next day, I was working in Vegas, and the next week, I was opening for the Commodores and I had a deal from NBC,” he said.
Anderson’s books included “Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child,” a collection of letters from Anderson to his late father; “Goodbye Jumbo… Hello Cruel World,” a self-help book, and “The F Word, How to Survive Your Family.”
His book “Hey Mom,” published in 2018, was a tribute to the wisdom imparted by his mother and how-to tips on facing life’s challenges.
Download our Free App
For Breaking News & Analysis Download the Free CBS News app