The Valley's Jesse Lally is walking back his claim that estranged wife Michelle Saniei was hooking up with a billionaire for money.
Despite alleging in the apparently not-so-secretive boys' group chat that he had "evidence" Michelle was "sleeping with a billionaire for $1,500 a night" on Season 2, Episode 3, Jesse admitted on The Valley After Show, "It was a rumor that I heard… I don't know if it's true."
"I'll give you the context," he continued in the above After Show clip. "This is an excuse 'cause I regret doing that and I wish I had unsent that message. But what happened was Michelle had gone and done a Q&A, and a bunch of people said, like, ya know, 'Why is Jesse so douchey?' And her response was, 'I don't care, he's not my problem anymore.'"
According to Jesse, he was immediately inundated with screenshots and messages asking why Michelle was being "so mean," especially given that they share a 5-year-old daughter, Isabella, who binds them together for life.
"So, it got me so frustrated," Jesse said, claiming he'd already addressed the rumor with Michelle prior to Janet Caperna's birthday party at Dave & Buster's. "Was it right for me to say it on the boys' chat? As soon as I sent it, I was like, 'I regret doing this.' I [was] so triggered."
Still, he reasoned, "Even the strongest man or woman, regardless of their growth, can have a moment of weakness when triggered."
How Michelle Saniei reacted to Jesse Lally's billionaire cheating rumor
In a separate After Show interview, Michelle, who recently moved in with boyfriend Aaron Nosler, noted that she was "very proud" that she's "worked really hard" since she was 20 years old.
"I became a successful real estate agent because of all of my hard work," she added. "So, to just diminish what I've done in the workplace and just call me an escort or a hooker when I am, in fact, the mother of your child, is just devastating."
When the cheating rumor eventually got back to Michelle via Brittany Cartwright — after Danny Booko spilled the group chat tea to Luke Broderick — on the April 29 episode, she tearfully took aim at Jesse's character. "He is a horrible person … and he's just making my life harder," she vented to Brittany and Nia Sanchez Booko, accusing her estranged husband of seeking "revenge" for her leaving him. "I have a boyfriend. Maybe he wants Aaron and I to break up."
On the After Show, Michelle also took issue with Danny repeating the claim to Luke, rather than coming to her directly. "I saw him at church the following week, and he didn’t say a word," she said.
Danny, meanwhile, issued an apology for his part in spreading the "hurtful" allegation, adding, "I didn't think there was any truth to it."
Are Jesse Lally and Michelle Saniei still married?
Yes. Despite the ongoing messy war of words, Jesse revealed elsewhere on The Valley After Show that, though he and Michelle "should've been able to legally divorce" in September 2024, they're currently "nowhere close" to doing so. According to him, the delay is allegedly due, at least in part, to a mediator's filing error.
As Michelle sees it, though, Jesse is intentionally "trying to prolong" their divorce proceedings.
"Part of me thinks that he does it because he does not want me to remarry," she claimed on the After Show. "So he's like, ya know, 'Let's just do this forever so that she can't move on and get married and have kids again.'"
See what the rest of The Valley cast had to say about the warring exes in the After Show clip above, and don't miss why Michelle said co-parenting with Jesse "has not been fun."
