“I take it, I take it... then I explode” – Teresa Giudice finally reveals what really triggered her legendary RHONJ table flip 16 years ago as she looks back on the moment that made her a reality TV icon - suong

Teresa Giudice's season 1 outburst turned into one of the most memorable moments in Housewives history.

Any fan of Real Housewives of New Jersey remembers the iconic season 1 finale moment where a frustrated Teresa spars with then-nemesis Danielle Staub, who orders her to "pay attention" as Staub confronts the cast for gossiping about a tell-all book that alleged sordid details about her past.

"Prostitution whore! You were f------ engaged 19 times," Teresa says as she begins to hit the table, eventually flipping it altogether as the expletives fly.

The RHONJ OG recently looked back at the moment while appearing on daughter Gia Giudice's Casual Chaos podcast. In the May 12, 2025 episode, she remembered getting along with Staub before the explosive moment that changed reality TV.

"Danielle was... let me tell you, Danielle was made for it. She was TV gold. She really was. She was awesome. She just put it all out there, literally," Teresa says.

"She was fun and very easy going, just so much fun, even though in the beginning, she was like insulting me a little bit. That's what made me flip the table on her, you know?" she continued.

"Because she would just throw these little jabs at me, like she said to Joe, 'Don't speak to me like you speak to your wife.' Stuff like that. And then I'm the type where I take it, I take it, I take it, and then when I don't take it anymore, I explode."

Despite many tumultuous years that followed, Teresa says, "I ended up getting to know her, and then look, we ended up making up later on."

While the table flip is iconic, it's also a legacy that the star has struggled with over the years, as she's turned her energy toward finding inner peace. During BravoCon 2023's Housewife2Housewife: Day One Diva panel, Teresa admitted that the adrenaline of the moment didn’t last long.

"Let me tell you the truth: after I did it, I was like, 'Oh my God, what did I just do?' " she recalled. "Like, I wasn't proud of it. I really wasn't."

"That was the first time I ever did that. I got that mad," she continued. "Afterwards, everyone loved it. So then I embraced it. I don't like the picture that everybody posted with that mean face... I should have been smiling, but everyone loves it. So, you know, because everyone else loves it. I've embraced it.”

In 2022, Carlos King told Time he remembered fielding a call from the budding reality star on her way home from the day's shoot.

"Teresa called me en route to her house and asked, 'What did you think?' I said, 'Oh, honey, mark my words: you’re going to be an icon,' " he told the outlet.