Melissa Gorga Had 'Fun' Coming Back to RHONJ After Teresa Giudice Predicted She'd Be Fired: 'Sorry!' (Exclusive)

Melissa Gorga couldn't help laugh when filming for season 14 of The Real Housewives of New Jersey picked back up last August.

At the season 13 reunion that aired that June, the Envy founder had been told by her sister-in-law (and fellow Housewife) Teresa Giudice that her time on the show had come to an end. "I can't wait to never f---ing look at your face again after today," Giudice, 51, promised Gorga, 45. "You're leaving!"

But as PEOPLE exclusively reported the next month, both Gorga and Giudice — as well as the rest of the New Jersey Housewives — all received pickup letters to return again. And when cameras started rolling, Gorga was feeling embodied.

"You know what? It was fun coming back," Gorga tells PEOPLE, teasing, "'What had happened?' "

"Oh God,.. sorry, I got to make it funny," she laughs. "I mean, what do you do if you don't have fun with it a little bit, right?"

Gorga wasn't bothered by Giudice's comments at the reunion in the first place. "I was unfazed because the harder someone goes and barks orders, the more you're just like, 'Okay, sit down,' " she says. "And you know what? It's been so many years and I'm just like, anything that they say or do at this point, I just giggle at. I'm like, 'Okay...' "

Seeing as Giudice made it clear at the season 13 reunion that their relationship was over for good, Gorga says she made the decision in season 14 to stop talking about Giudice. In the first episode of season 14 , which premieres on Sunday, she even refuses to answer questions from producers about Giudice.

"There's just no need. I don't need to comment on it," Gorga tells PEOPLE. "I don't need to talk about it. ... It's something I just, I don't want to say don't care about, but I just don't anymore. That ship has sailed, and I'm okay with it, my family's okay with it — so why do I need to talk about it? There's absolutely nothing to talk about. So I'm not answering a question because it's just going to be a dead-end question anyway. Keep it moving and let's talk about something else."

For what it's worth, Giudice seems happy to keep her distance from Gorga too in season 14, not even acknowledging her at the first episode's all-cast event. Viewers will have to wait and see if that continues for the rest of the episodes, but at BravoCon 2023 in November, Giudice told fans she'll get "redemption" in this season.

Again, Gorga isn't worried. "All I keep hearing is every season is like, 'vindication!' " Gorga laughs. "No, I think it's actually complete opposite."

"It's so funny to hear everyone on the other side saying they feel they're going to be vindicated," she continues. "Really? Really? Well, that'll be the seventh season in a row that you say that and it does not happen."

If Gorga had a thick skin about this all, that's because she's developed one of the years of watching her up and down relationship with Giudice play out on television before a national audience. It's been 13 years since the On Display with Melissa Gorga podcast host made her debut on RHONJ, when she and her husband Joe joined in the show's third season. And though she's still very much the same Gorga fans met, her confidence has change the most.

"People forget, I had a newborn when I first joined the show," Gorga recalls of her son Joey, who was only 2-months-old at the time (joining sister Antonia, 4, and brother Gino, 2). "I was a new mom, raising these three little babies, and trying to navigate this intense situation with my in-laws in front of the whole world. It was a lot!"

"I really went through the woods," she recalls. "And looking back on it now, I'm proud I was able to navigate these rocky waters that were presented to me will still staying true to myself. I'm much stronger than I ever thought I was. And I've become a really confident person, where I not only have that 'I don't give a you know what' attitude, but I also really believe it."

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The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Sundays (8 p.m. ET) on Bravo.