How Barbara Walters Once Offended RHONJ Star Caroline Manzo

The late Barbara Walters is perhaps best remembered as a formidable and noteworthy broadcast journalist and television personality. Unfortunately, it appears former Bravoleb Caroline Manzo remembers her a bit differently. As any true "Real Housewives" stan knows, Manzo is always ready and willing to speak her truth, and her encounter with Walters proved to be no different.

Manzo let it all hang out during an appearance on Page Six's "Virtual Reali-Tea" podcast, claiming that Walters essentially snubbed her when she was a guest on Walters' daytime talk show "The View." According to the former New Jersey housewife, she was very eager to be there but ended up walking away from the experience less than impressed when Walters failed to greet her in the green room prior to the show starting. "Barbara never showed," Manzo declared. But like most "Real Housewives" feuds, there's even more to this story because Manzo claims Walters dissed her in favor of chatting to another guest. 

As Caroline Manzo once waxed poetic, "You hang out with trash, and you start to smell like garbage." Perhaps she believes that saying applies to award-winning journalist Barbara Walters, too! Manzo was adamant during her "Virtual Reali-Tea" interview that she wasn't so much miffed by the backstage snub as she was that Walters did, in fact, take the time to greet the show's other guest — someone Manzo referred to as a "woman that wrote a book on being a professional mistress." She added, "I could understand if you felt like maybe we're a little lowbrow and you can't be bothered, but look who you're saying hello to, and you're not coming next door to say hello to me." 

Could it be that Manzo was hinting around at Walters' very own marital affair with Senator Edward W. Brooke back in the 1970s? "I was certainly — I don't know — I was certainly infatuated," Walters confessed during a candid interview with Oprah Winfrey about the illicit romance. "I was certainly involved. He was exciting. He was brilliant. It was exciting times in Washington."

As it turns out, however, the backstage affront was just the tip of the iceberg for Manzo. Things went from bad to worse once "The View" cameras started rolling... 

Let us tell you something about former reality star Caroline Manzo's family: They are as thick as thieves, and they protect each other 'til the end — even from the late Barbara Walters. (If you know, you know.) Unfortunately, that's precisely what happened when Walters and the other hosts collectively aimed at Caroline Manzo's youngest son, Chris Manzo, and his dream of opening a car wash that doubled as a strip club. Manzo told the hosts of "Virtual Reali-Tea" that the ladies pointedly asked Manzo what she thought of the budding entrepreneur's business idea. "And I'm like, 'What do I think of it? Show me an 18-year-old with an entrepreneurial mind like this. Show me an 18-year-old that's brave enough to do what they want and has the courage enough to take a risk to do what he wants,'" she recounted. 

However, Manzo was careful to note that she received a knowing nudge from host and comedian Joy Behar as if to communicate that she was proud of Manzo for holding her ground. Who knows? Maybe Behar knows a thing or two about the New Jersey Housewives...