Life & Style Magazine Reports (Cover Story) on Melissa Gorga’s Extra-Marital Affair with Bryan ‘Bulldog’ Bowen

This story was originally published at Fame-Whorgas on February 13, 2013 (and updated on February 17, 2013). It is being republished because it relates to the heated discussion at the Milania Hair Care launch party about the Life & Style article on Melissa’s cheating scandal. The scene was taped on February 18, 2013 (photos at the time showed the Giudices and Gorgas presenting a united front). The Milania launch party was first featured on season 5 episode 12, which premiered on August 18, 2013.

On February 15, 2013, just days after the cast returned from their trip to Lake George where they supposedly worked out their differences, and two days before the Milania launch party, Melissa retweeted a RumorFix article that blamed Teresa for Melissa’s cheating scandal:

The following is a partial transcript (click here for the full transcript) from season 5 episode 12, when the Life & Style cover story about Melissa Gorga cheating on Joe with Bryan “Bulldog” Bowen was discussed.

Jan: Melissa, the academy award goes to you. Thank you Jesus! … I’m outta here.

Kim D: What just happened?

Melissa: She’s trying to say that I hung out with a guy! Why would she say something so fucking stupid?! She’s such an ass.

Teresa: I don’t know. Can you guys just forgot all of this?!

Melissa: Hello, I’m on a cover of a magazine [Life & Style]! This is bullshit.

Teresa: Look, that had nothing to do with that article [in Life & Style].

Kim D: She [Jan] had nothing to do with it!

Penny walks over to Kim D, Teresa, Melissa and Joe.

Melissa to Penny: I heard that you had dinner with my sister-in-law and with Jan, and that you were, like, talking shit about me the whole time you were there.

Penny: Did I say things? Absolutely. I’m not going to deny it.

Melissa to Penny: But a lot of things you’ve said are not true.

Penny: I don’t want to hurt you. I was confronted about a situation. I answered a question. And that’s how I was brought into this shit. When that article [in Life & Style] came out, the only reason I did respond is because I was asked.

Melissa: So you’re saying people ask you questions about me?

Penny: You know, many different people.

Melissa to Penny: What question were you asked?

Penny: I was asked who [Bryan Bulldog Bowen’s name is bleeped out] was. I was asked about certain things from your past.

Melissa: Who asked you these questions?

Penny: Well, I’m not gonna (Melissa interrupts).

Melissa: You should say it!

Penny: I’m know I should say, but I don’t want to cause problems.

Melissa: I get that.

Melissa: Honestly, lady to lady, who asked you these questions?

Penny: I know I should say it but I’d rather take the blame.

Melissa: You shouldn’t.

Penny: But you know what, I’d rather take the blame.

Melissa: Alright.

Penny: Cuz that’s what I am.

Melissa: Sounds like you’re getting used and abused honey! Honestly, and I’m not being rude.

Update 8/23/2013: Please read Penny’s blog at Faux Reality Entertainment: she explains that she “was not permitted at the time” to answer Melissa’s question, “Who asked you these questions,” and that “Melissa Gorga was fully aware of the restriction, so her insistence that I provide the information was strictly to make Teresa look guilty – it is unfortunate that the entire exchange wasn’t aired.” Penny also explained that: “When Melissa proclaimed that she didn’t know me, I proceeded to list in detail how absurd her statement was. She backed off her position that she didn’t know me. Melissa’s backpeddling was edited out.”

Life & Style Magazine picked up on the story that Melissa Gorga cheated on Joe during their marriage. The magazine even named Bryan “Bulldog” Bowen as the ex boyfriend she fooled around with at Sushi Lounge in 2009, a story that has been circulating on the internet for the past two years.

However, even though the cover headline screams “Melissa Cheated on Joe!”, the article itself is very biased and slanted toward Melissa, painting Teresa as a manipulative bitch.  It seems like Bravo put out this story to quell rumors — it certainly does NOT put Teresa in a good light and makes Melissa look, once again, like THE victim.  This article could have been published in Us Weekly with the title, “Teresa is Out to Get Melissa Again”, and not a word changed in the text.  Sad. 

Bravo is setting up Teresa to take the fall for outing Melissa as a cheater.

This theory is confirmed when your read the rest of the Life & Style article. Here are more excerpts from the print article (online version below):

“Nothing would make Teresa and her cohorts happier. Certainly after ruining her relationship with her brother and coming off as a villain for attempting to expose a seemingly innocent Melissa last season, Teresa is desperate to be proven right. “Everyone knows Teresa won’t stop until she feels like she’s won and taken down Melissa” says a series insider. “Now she has an army to do that.”

There is a sweet photo of the Gorga family along with a caption (“A Family Struggling to Get Through”).

Though Melissa boasts about her picture-perfect marriage in her forthcoming book, Love Italian Style, the pain and humiliation of cheating rumors is a lot to bear. Still, she and Joe are determined to put on a brave face for their children… They have each other’s back,” insists a friend of the couple.  Agrees another insider: “At the end of the day, people can say whatever they want; Melissa’s marriage is solid.” Above all Melissa told L & S, “I need to protect my family – and that’s what I’m doing.”

The last six long paragraphs of the article point out that Melissa’s relationship with Bulldog was well BEFORE she met Joe: “Those close to her… firmly deny Melissa ever had an affair”. And it points out Joe Giudice’s criminal charges, bankruptcy, and cheating allegations and that Kim D’s late “sugar daddy’s” family wouldn’t allow her to his funeral.

And then it goes on, at length, about how all these “rumors” won’t hurt Melissa’s marriage because Joe knows they are not true and it’s making them even stronger; and that she’s a mother and wife and having this out there is upsetting but she can’t stop people from spreading hurtful lies.

This article sounds more like Melissa’s sisters Lysa and Kim coming to her defense and Bravo spinning it to put things back on the right track of the original premise for season 5, which is to make Teresa out to be exactly what this article makes her look like – spiteful and vindictive.

Fame-Whorgas’ source, who first contacted me in October 2012, told me in early December 2012 that the phone call Teresa took at the Holiday Posche Fashions Show was from a friend of Bryan’s (Mike) who was present when Melissa had Bryan meet her at Sushi Lounge in 2009, where their friends witnessed them hooking up in the car in the parking lot. My source says Penny Drossos placed the call, but, according to Bryan, he was not aware that a friend was on camera (via the phone) giving this information to Penny and Teresa.