Caroline Manzo Says Barbara Walters “Offended” Her Backstage at ‘The View’

Caroline Manzo says she felt “offended” by Barbara Walters when she appeared on The View over a decade ago.

Speaking to Page Six‘s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast, Manzo said, “Barbara Walters was there at the time, and she walks into the green room next door to mine to say hello to a guest and ‘Thank you for coming on the show,’ and I’m like, ‘Barbara’s coming in! Here comes Barbara!’ Barbara never showed.”

The Real Housewives of New Jersey alum chalked the slight up to reality television’s “lowbrow” status at the time, until she later realized the other guest on the show was a “woman that wrote a book on being a professional mistress.”

“You can’t be bothered, but look who you’re saying hello to, and you’re not coming to say hello to me next door? And I was offended by that,” Manzo said.

Manzo also described having to defend her son’s entrepreneurial choices on stage when she finally sat with Walters and the other co-hosts. Her son, Chris Manzo, wanted to open up a combination strip club and car wash at the time.

“They say to me, ‘Well, your son wants to open a strip club car wash. What do you think of that?’ And I’m like, ‘What do I think of it? Show me an 18-year-old with an entrepreneurial mind like this,” she said.

She later said, “I kinda just looked at them like, ‘What are you trying to say?’ He could be playing video games, doing nothing all day long 24/7, but he’s thinking, he’s ambitious.”

Manzo asserted that she is still ready to “cut the ribbon if Chris ever opens a strip club car wash.”

On the podcast, the reality star also shut down speculation that she was the one to call the FBI on her former co-star Teresa Giudice.

“I did not. And I know who did. And I will never say it…,” she teased.