The so-called “indisputable evidence” that Rulla Nehme Pontarelli’s husband, Brian Pontarelli, was still romantically involved with his alleged mistress finally arrived on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island.
Jo-Ellen Tiberi received and shared the “video proof” of Brian’s affair with several castmates during their group trip to a Newport mansion in Episode 7 (more on that below), before revealing even more details on exactly what was in the unseen recording, on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island After Show.
“So, my girlfriend shows me this video, and it’s horrible,” Jo-Ellen recalled. “And she and I went to esthetics school together. She’s a sweet girl. She’s friendly with the mistress. And so, she’s like, ‘Listen, this was wrong of me. I filmed this thing of the mistress and Brian early morning and him leaving her house.’ It was so obvious they just had sex.”
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Jo-Ellen continued, “She’s not wearing a bra. They’re making out. That was the longest hug I’ve ever seen in my life. I wanted to cringe. If Gary [Tiberi] ever hugged me that long, I would be like, ‘Get off of me. Like, go away.'”
She further noted that her friend filmed the video at around 7 a.m. when Brian supposedly said he was at the gym but was “actually at the mistress’s” home.
“I believe that the mistress and my girlfriend came up with this and then they sent it to me,” Jo-Ellen added. “And, honestly, I only asked my friend, I said, ‘If you can do me a favor and get me a picture of the mistress and Brian with a timestamp on it, that’s all I’m asking.’ I wasn’t there. I don’t f–kin’ care. I don’t know where the girl lives.”
Jo-Ellen Tiberi explained the motive behind the video of Rulla Nehme Pontarelli’s husband, Brian
As castmate Alicia Carmody pointed out on the RHORI After Show, Rulla and Brian had been “attacking” Jo-Ellen’s character. “You were just trying to show that you weren’t lying,” Alicia explained. “Here’s the evidence.”
That’s when Jo-Ellen revealed, “Do I know a lot more than I’ve shared? I know a lot more, Alicia.”
According to Jo-Ellen, she had never intended to play “detective,” but as “things came to” her, she couldn’t ignore what she saw with her “own two eyes.” She reasoned, “People talk to me. People tell me things,” before going on to detail how a local barista had also texted her more “videos of Brian and the mistress getting coffee together.”
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“I didn’t even ask; it was just given to me,” Jo-Ellen insisted. “He goes to the same coffee shop, and he sits with the mistress and her in the exact same seat. Move ya spot! It’s not my problem. I don’t really care. It’s her problem. It’s her life.”
During RHORI‘s May 10 episode, Jo-Ellen had also explained that Rulla seemed to be making her out to be “delusional” and challenged her at the polo match to find “real proof” of Brian’s alleged ongoing affair. So, Jo-Ellen asked her friend if any such proof existed, and she responded, “There’s plenty.”
“I never asked my friend to give me video proof,” she clarified in a confessional. “But Rulla said she wants hard proof. This is as hard as it gets.”
How the RHORI cast described the video of Brian Pontarelli with his “mistress”
Before pressing play, Jo-Ellen underscored the point that the footage was taken just two days before the polo match during which the “mistress” had posted photos on social media of her and Brian allegedly showing his car’s red interior. Brian, for his part, maintained that he had been visiting his sick mother in the hospital at the time.
Viewers, meanwhile, saw little more than the date, Aug. 7, on what appeared to be a vehicle’s dashboard display, when Jo-Ellen eventually showed the video to Alicia, Rosie DiMare, Liz McGraw, and Kelsey Swanson, in Newport. However, the women filled in some of the blanks by describing to producers what they saw in the footage of Brian and the alleged other woman.
“The video starts, [and] you’re looking through a glass door, and Brian and this blonde woman are standing there,” Rosie began in a confessional, before Kelsey, separately, added, “Brian is, like, consoling and caressing this blonde lady with his hand on her ass and, like, kissing her.”
Then, Alicia chimed in, “There’s, like, this long hug. They’re, like, embracing each other. It’s, like, a five-minute hug. It’s like, who hugs that long? Is this really happening right now? Like, is this a setup?”
Finally, a stunned Liz declared, “This is indisputable evidence. … Jo-Ellen is vindicated ’cause she has said Brian is doing his thing with this woman. You can’t deny video footage.”
In the meantime, get a sneak peek at Rosie asking Rulla about the video of Brian — amid even more intense drama ahead — in the RHORI midseason trailer.
