RHONJ’s Luis Ruelas’ Ex Vanessa Confirms Margaret Josephs Told the Truth About When They Connected

Margaret Josephs’ interaction with Luis “Louie” Ruelas‘ ex-fiancée Vanessa Reiser caused a cast separation on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Now, Vanessa exclusively tells In Touch that Margaret told the truth about how they first met and the details of their connection.

“It was all after Bo Dietl put two fake clients in my practice who were pretending to be the victims of domestic violence that we began to connect,” Vanessa tells In Touch, revealing that there wasn’t a friendship between her and Margaret, 57.

Cast members accused Luis, 49, of hiring Bo to dig up dirt on the RHONJ cast during season 13, which diminished any chance of him bonding with everyone else – especially the husbands. He later denied hiring the private investigator but admitted to having a friendship with Bo.

“We were hired to do a confidential investigation into the ex-girlfriend, and all of a sudden Luis says on the show that he hired Bo Dietl to investigate, and this becomes a narrative,” Bo exclusively tells In Touch. “We told Andy Cohen we were never hired to look into the cast. We were never hired by Luis or any other cast member to do a background check on any Real Housewives. We adhere to the most rigorous legal standards in our investigation. We maintain confidentiality regarding our cases, and we do not comment on specific investigations.”

Vanessa also reacted to rumors of a possible RHONJ cast reboot and wished the women well, no matter what their future on Bravo holds.

“I never like to see anybody’s career get affected. It makes me sad for anybody that would have a loss of wages,” Vanessa tells In Touch. “So, I hope that anybody from the show can manage to sort of rebrand themselves and continue with all of their businesses and that they flourish.”

Throughout RHONJ season 14, Teresa, 52, claimed to have top-secret information about Margaret. Fans were disappointed to learn that the news was that Teresa’s costar was in contact with her husband’s ex – without malicious intent. During the season finale, Margaret revealed that Jackie Goldschneider privately met with Vanessa and another one of Luis’ exes named Vanessa to dig up dirt on Teresa and Luis.

“She had both Vanessas at her home, two of them … at her house, which did not come out,” Margaret revealed during SiriusXM’s Reality Checked with Kiki Monique in August. “She reached out to them. I have the screenshot of it, which was not shown, [on February 25, 2021], before Luis had ever even come on the show, and understandably so. [Jackie] wanted to get Teresa back for spreading [the cheating] rumor [about Evan Goldschneider].”

While the RHONJ cast duked it out over Luis and his ex, who dated between 2018 and 2020, Vanessa is ready to share her dating history in her book Narcissistic Abuse: A Therapist’s Guide to Identifying, Escaping, and Healing From Toxic and Manipulative People.

“I wrote the book because I noticed that there was a disconnect between people who had gone through narcissistic abuse and those who have extricated themselves from cults,” Vanessa tells In Touch. “The book is designed specifically to fuse the concepts of narcissistic abuse and cult abuse.”

In October 2023, Vanessa was denied a restraining order against Luis. She filed the paperwork after she believed Luis hired Bo to spy on her by bringing hired clients into her therapy office and asking personal questions about their relationship.

Vanessa didn’t go into detail about the current cordiality between her and Luis, but told In Touch that they have “civil restraints.”

“So, neither one of us is going to be disparaging the other,” the therapist says. “That is just not something that either one of us can do. So, I’m not going to be doing that in any form.”