Teresa Giudice has faced a pretty tough year alongside her husband Joe, and her face has been plastered all over every tabloid and gossip magazine on the newsstands since the couple were found guilty of mail and wire fraud and deceiving a bankruptcy court. But the reality star and author says she won’t hide, and showed up on the premiere of The Real Housewives of New Jersey recently to prove it.

“Hiding is the easy way out, and I’ll never do that, I can’t stop the world from gossiping, but it’s always in the back of my mind,” she said.

Teresa faces several months in jail for the couple’s crimes, as does Joe, and some fans were surprised that they would continue to do the show in the midst of all the drama and legal battles. However, she says she’ll push on because it’s her job.

“This is my career now, and why wouldn’t I return?” she asked.

Giudice can at least attribute two patched-up relationships to her hard times, however; she recently admitted that her friendship with sister-in-law Melissa Gorga has been mended due to the hard times their family has seen–Joe’s father passed away from a sudden heart attack in the midst of their legal troubles–and the premiere episode shows that she is trying to repair things with Dina Manzo, to whom she turned for comfort.

“I had a normal life, and now I’m in this nightmare, I just want to wake up and for everything to be like it was, and that’s the truth,” Giudice said.

Image via YouTube