Teresa Giudice’s Hubby Luis Ruelas Accused of STIFFING $300K Payment to Party Planner
Teresa Giudice’s husband, Luis Ruelas, under fire for alleged non-payment of $300K to party planner at Vivina launch party.
Teresa Giudice’s husband, Luis Ruelas, is facing backlash on social media after a party planner accused his latest business venture, Vivina, of failing to pay her over $300,000 for organizing the company’s launch party last year.
Real Housewives of New Jersey star, Luis Ruelas, 50, along with one of Luis’s sons, two of Teresa’s daughters, Gia Giudice, 23, and Audriana Giudice, 14, and Gia’s boyfriend, Christian Carmichael, attended the event.
However, months later, the planner behind the celebration is demanding payment. In screenshots shared by Wife of the Party on Instagram, the planner addressed Luis directly.
“[Luis Ruelas] how do we get paid?!” she questioned, sharing an event photo of Teresa, 52, and their blended family. Other posts on the Wife of the Party Instagram Story featured comments from social media users criticizing Luis.
“Luis had a grand launch event that Louie and he still hasn’t compensated the woman who organized it” one person noted. “This is wild to me. Why did he not pay her?”
Another message asked:
“How will you pay us the $300,000 [plus] you’ve owed us along with all the other vendors that are waiting? It’s been 60 days and a lot of excuses.” In another post, the planner included a screenshot of Vinivia’s Instagram post about the party, which tagged her as the planner. She captioned it, “When [Vinivia] says they can’t pay you because their investors aren’t paying them.”
Back in April, Bravo’s The Daily Dish shared an article about Luis’ new venture, highlighting that Teresa’s children supported his “new [beginning].” Around that time, Luis discussed the project with TMZ.
“This is a live streaming platform that’s being launched on April 4, 2024, solely for creators and influencers around the world,” he explained. “That’s what I do for a living.” As criticism on social media grew, one user posted, “Louie Ruelas called out for not paying 300k to a company that helped launch his app Vinivia,” along with a clip of Luis discussing Vinivia with TMZ.
Wife of the Party was “hired by Vinivia and has yet to be paid $300,000 [plus],” another post stated.
On Vinivia’s account, Luis is seen promoting the company, saying, “Augmented reality and artificial intelligence is one of our specialties here at Vinivia. Bringing your followers and your audiences down a beautiful consumer journey with product placements behind you and they may not seem placed in other environments. Do it live. Vinivia now. Let’s go!”
In a lengthy video shared on Instagram amid the controversy, Wife of the Party discussed the non-payment issue. “And this isn’t a dispute, to be clear, about vendors or a miscommunication or a line item because that’s a completely different thing than someone having a contract and promising to pay for services rendered and asking if they can delay the payment until Monday because a wire didn’t come in,” she stated. “I want to be very clear that as this project went on, everything was requested and approved and I have everything to show that. This wasn’t a surprise number. [Marcello Genovese] fully agreed and just kept giving me excuses.”
Marcello Genovese is the CEO and co-founder of Vinivia, according to the app’s website. Luis is the co-founder of Digital Media Solutions (DMS), which assisted with Vinivia’s launch, and is described as an “independent contractor” of the app in a report by The U.S. Sun.
“I’m at the point now where I finally realize that they’re not going to pay me. It’s making me sick and I think that moreover, it was really important that I finally spoke up because I went back and forth,” Wife of the Party continued. “I was told not to. I was told not to air out the drama as a company but this isn’t drama. This is complete fraud and this is a few hundred thousand dollars. Yet there are a lot of things that Vinivia and Marcello are doing that they need money for yet he keeps telling me money is coming my way. And there’s been fraudulent paperwork, there’s been money returned. He did send a couple small credit card payments but I do realize now that was just to shut me up and it just really sucks.”
Wife of the Party also revealed that Vinivia secured Luis a new office at Avenue of the Stars and has been “hiring girls,” despite owing her over $300,000. “They had this huge party that they couldn’t afford at my expense,” she added.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 14 airs Sundays, at 8pm ET, on Bravo.
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Olivia Davis
Olivia Davis is a Staff Writer at All About The Tea. Olivia’s hobbies include binging Netflix series, and watching Housewives on Bravo. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in History.
