When Kathy Wakile was first contacted by Bravo to be on “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” she thought it was a practical joke.

“I watched the show and of course my cousin was on it and I’d been invited to events they’d done, but I thought that I could be a part of it,” Wakile said.

Wakile’s cousin is fellow “Housewife” regular Teresa Giudice. Her primary concern about appearing on the show was putting her two children on television, Victoria and Joseph, who were 16 and 14 when filming of the show’s third season began.

“High school’s hard enough,” Wakile said. “When you’re in high school it’s difficult so we [Wakile and her husband Rich] tried to put every worst case scenario out there for them and see what their answers were. And they came back with all the right answers.”

Wakile wants viewers to see that the way her family is on the show is genuine. She and Victoria had a conversation about sex.

“A lot of people thought that was strange,” Wakile said of the talk, which she says was “about self respect [and being] accountable for your actions.”

Wakile’s feud and ongoing conflict with Giudice and her family was featured on the show last season.

“I got a lot of heat [from fans] saying I went against my blood. Well, Joe’s my blood too, and I never went against Teresa,” Wakile said. “I tried to make her see where she and Joe were misreading each other.”

Wakile, a 16-year Wayne resident, said that reality television personalities cannot blame editing and networks for what they say and how they act on shows.

“If you said it, you said it, but you don’t know what I said before and you don’t know what I said after,” she said. “So where editing comes into play and where you might get a little ‘oh, well I said something really nice before that but they didn’t put that in there.’”

As another example, after a fight that occurred at the Posche Fashion Show, Wakile spoke to the show’s producers after the filming occurred.

“I said I was trying to reason with her [Giudice] intelligently, and then they got the clip ‘I guess intelligence is just a foreign language to her,’ and they put that somewhere else. That’s editing.”

New Jersey is the Place To Be

While Wakile recognizes the “unfortunate” stereotype that comes with New Jersey’s popularity in the media, she said, “Why wouldn’t it be hot? We have so much to offer.”

“I mean, we have the mountains in an hour, we’ve got New York City, we have the beach, we have everything you could possibly want in New Jersey. People don’t realize it,” she said. “[And] we have the best produce.”

Season Four

Season Four began filming in May 2010, Wakile said, giving the housewives a chance to showcase The Garden State in the summer, which the show hasn’t done yet.

“It’s a really great, fun season, season four and there’s a lot going on and a lot happening, and Jersey comes alive in the summertime,” Wakile said. “You’ll see a different Jersey Shore than America is used to, let me put it that way.”

Wakile said it was difficult at first to be the new person on the show, as fans did not receive her well at first. The first episode of the season featured a fistfight between different members of her family during the Gorgas’ son’s christening. Wakile said that incident occurred on only her second day of filming.

Wakile said she doesn’t like confrontations. She said viewers’ opinion of her changed as the season progressed, especially regarding the ongoing feud with Giudice.

“I think people got to see a little bit more of who I was and how I am with my family,” Wakile said. “I think the story started to unravel a little bit and people got to see reactions back and forth and how I continued to try to reconcile with Teresa.”

Wakile said she never wanted to get in the middle of a family confrontation. That’s not her style.

“I don’t like trouble; I don’t,” she said. “I really cringe at confrontation. I try to avoid it all times.”