The Bravo cameras are back in the Garden State. The Real Housewives of New Jersey started filming season 9 on Tuesday, March 20, multiple sources confirm to Us Weekly.
While Teresa Giudice, Margaret Josephs, Melissa Gorga and Dolores Catania are all set to return for the upcoming season, Siggy Flicker decided to leave the series at the end of season 8.
“I learned we can’t plan our future. I could never have predicted that my time on The Real Housewives of New Jersey would take me to where I need to be today,” Siggy wrote in an exclusive letter to fans for Us Weekly in January. “So as I continue to write my fairytale, I pray that each of you will continue to write yours.”
Danielle Staub, who returned to RHONJ last season as a friend for the first time since her season 2 departure in 2010, will be back, but her role is up in the air, according to the source.
While no new full-time Housewives have been hired yet, “they’re rolling in a bunch of different people and trying to figure it out as they go,” a source explains.
As previously reported, sources exclusively told Us Weekly in January that producers were considering approaching former housewives Caroline Manzo and Jacqueline Laurita about returning to the series. Us can now confirm that they will not be returning this season.
When asked in January if she would rejoin the hit franchise, Caroline told Us it would “be a major, major decision.” (She left RHONJ after five seasons in 2013 and went on to star on Manzo’d With Children with her family for three seasons.)
“It’s not something that I would embrace wholeheartedly and say, ‘Let’s do this!’ It’s something that I would consider very, very heavily and for a long time,” she explained. “On my end it would have to be a very well thought out decision because it has so many layers to it at this point in my life. So many layers to it. I had so much fun doing Manzo’d. It was just an awesome awesome opportunity.”
