The Real Housewives of New Jersey have some skeletons in their walk-in closets.
The McMansion-living Jersey girls featured in the latest incarnation of the Bravo series, which debuts at 11 p.m. Tuesday, dish dirt on each other but are hush-hush about their own secrets.
Housewife Teresa Giudice, a big spender with big hair, plunks down $120,360 cash in the show’s premiere to furnish her Montville dream home.
But Giudice, a mom of three, is not so ready with the cash off-screen. Public records show her delinquent debts include $15,000 for a decorative railing on the mansion’s grand staircase.
North Hudson IVF, a fertility clinic in Englewood Cliffs, is seeking $11,276 from the Giudices, according to a civil claim filed in November.
“The case is ongoing,” said T. Timothy Smith, the scientific director of the fertility clinic.
Budd Built-In Vacuum Cleaners of Wyckoff filed a $2,030 claim against the couple in April 2007.
“I don’t think that is anybody’s business,” Giudice said about the debts in a phone interview.
Also owing money is Danielle Staub, who boasts that she was engaged 19 times before marrying husband Thomas. They later divorced.
The IRS filed a lien against the Staubs in 2007 for failing to pay $130,557 in personal income tax for 1999, 2002 and 2003, records show.
Staub claims that she was a Ford model. The Ford agency said it had no record of Staub and that the division she claims to have worked for never existed.
Staub, reached by phone, said she would answer questions only if her Bravo publicist agreed. Bravo refused to make her available.
The show features sisters Caroline and Dina Manzo, whose husbands run a popular Paterson catering hall. In the premiere, no one talks about their husbands’ father — Albert “Tiny” Manzo — who was found shot to death in the trunk of his car in 1983 in what was thought to be a mob hit.
“I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide about my past,” Caroline Manzo told reporters last week.
Dina Manzo runs Project Ladybug, a charity for sick kids that claims to be a nonprofit. The IRS said it was not tax-exempt, meaning that donations are not tax-deductible and there is no public accountability of spending. An accountant for the charity said it had applied to the IRS to get that designation.
The fifth housewife, Jacqueline Laurita, confesses in a video on the show’s Web site that she was once arrested for fighting but does not disclose details.
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JACQUELINE LAURITA, 38, Franklin Lakes Confesses on the show’s Web site to once having been arrested for fighting.
TERESA GIUDICE, 36, Montville Owes money to design firm, a fertility clinic and vacuum cleaner company.
DANIELLE STAUB, 46, Wayne Has a $130,557 federal tax lien against her and her ex. Claims to have been a Ford model; agency has no record of her.
DINA MANZO, 37, Franklin Lakes Runs a charity that claims to be a nonprofit but does not have IRS taxexempt status.
CAROLINE MANZO, 47, Franklin Lakes Dina’s oldest sister, married to Dina’s husband’s brother. Hubby’s father found shot to death in the trunk of a Lincoln Continental in 1983.
Additional reporting by Jeane MacIntosh