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The Real Housewives of New Jersey

American reality television series

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ7759594
Source-derived summary

The Real Housewives of New Jersey, abbreviated RHONJ, is an American reality television series that premiered on May 12, 2009, on Bravo. Developed as the fourth installment of The Real Housewives franchise, it has aired fourteen seasons and focuses on the personal and professional lives of several women residing in the state of New Jersey, primarily in North Jersey.

The cast of the recent fourteenth season consists of Teresa Giudice, Melissa Gorga, Dolores Catania, Margaret Josephs, Jennifer Aydin, Danielle Cabral and Rachel Fuda, with former housewife Jackie Goldschneider and Jennifer Fessler serving as friends of the housewives. Previously featured cast members include original housewives Dina Cantin, Jacqueline Laurita, Caroline Manzo and Danielle Staub; and subsequent housewives Kathy Wakile, Teresa Aprea, Amber Marchese, Nicole Napolitano and Siggy Flicker.

The success of the show has resulted in the spin-offs Boys to Manzo, Manzo'd with Children, and Teresa Checks In.

Cast

Episodes

Production

2008–2013

The Real Housewives of New Jersey was announced by Bravo on April 15, 2008. The first season premiered on May 12, 2009, and starred Caroline Manzo, Jacqueline Laurita, Teresa Giudice, Dina Cantin and Danielle Staub with Dolores Catania as a friend of the housewives. For the first time in The Real Housewives franchise, the series followed cast members who are related to one another: sisters Caroline Manzo and Dina Cantin were at the time married to brothers Albert and Tommy Manzo, and Laurita is married to Caroline and Dina's brother, Chris Laurita. Dina and Tommy Manzo would later end up separated. The second season premiered on May 3, 2010, with Dina Manzo departing the series after the seventh episode.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” as american reality television series. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 2008, 2013, 2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Real, Housewives and Jersey can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as american reality television series. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7759594. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009, 2008, 2013 and 2010.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Real Housewives of New Jersey primary sources, The Real Housewives of New Jersey archive and Real research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Real Housewives of New Jersey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.