Whereas showing on the Could 26 episode of Gia Giudice‘s Informal Chaos podcast, the 26-year-old daughter of the Actual Housewives of New Jersey alum detailed the years she spent in Tommy’s residence after her mom married him in 2007.

“He had this, this, like, bizarre obsession with me,” Lexi claimed. “For years, individuals would inform me that he stored my room precisely the identical as a result of he thought I used to be going to return again. I am unable to even start to know why he would assume I’d ever come again there.”

Regardless of his break up from Dina, Lexi mentioned Tommy “held on to my issues for, you already know, 10 years.”

“He by no means had youngsters of his personal and I used to be the closest factor he needed to it. So, he actually liked me,” she mentioned, explaining his bond together with her. “He was by no means inappropriate, however he undoubtedly was very affectionate. And that was one thing I used to be very uncomfortable with as a result of neither of my mother and father are that method.”

“To obtain it from a stepfather is sort of, like, further unusual while you don’t obtain it out of your precise father,” she added.

Lexi famous that she was anticipated to return that affection out of obligation, which made issues worse.

“I used to be instructed to pay him that sort of affection out of respect,” she defined. “Due to this fact, I felt like our relationship was very uncomfortable for me.”

Dina and Tommy tied the knot in 2007 when Lexi was simply six years previous. They separated in 2012 and formally divorced in 2016.

Dina went on to marry now-husband, David Cantin, in 2017.

Tommy, in the meantime, who’s the brother of former RHONJ star Caroline Manzo’s husband Albert Manzo, is at the moment serving time in jail. In 2024, he was sentenced to 84 months behind bars for hiring a Lucchese crime household soldier to assault Cantin again in 2015.

Lexi beforehand touched on her expertise together with her former stepfather in a Substack essay titled Do not Poke the Bear, the place she claimed Tommy forcibly kicked her out of the home in the course of the break up.

“In 2012 I used to be ‘violently’ shaken awake by Tommy, who instructed me I had half-hour to ‘get the f–k’ out of [his] home,” she wrote. “In that chaotic second, I misplaced not solely my residence, but in addition irreplaceable heirlooms collected over generations, together with my childhood keepsakes.”

“I mourn not just for myself, however for my future youngsters,” she added, “as these tangible connections to my household historical past have been stolen from us.”

Whereas talking with Gia on Informal Chaos, Lexi revealed that she tried to retrieve these belongings after Tommy’s sentencing, however was met with silence.

“I had an understanding that he stored every thing of mine all these years, so I wished it again,” she mentioned. “It was actually tough for me to increase myself and to ask for assist, however I used to be that determined. I simply wished these issues again.”

So determined, actually, that she reached out to her cousin, Caroline’s daughter, Lauren Manzo, in hopes of getting some assist, however nothing got here of it.

Lexi additionally attended Tommy’s trial and described the emotional toll it took on her and her household.

“I went to the trial final yr and I sat there for every week, and I listened to everyone testify,” Lexi shared. “My mother and I are so totally different like that. She could not even abdomen being there for, like, half-hour. I went daily, all day, for seven days. I wanted to know every thing. The phrase that got here up quite a bit was obsessive. There was some sort of obsessive dysfunction happening there with the truth that he misplaced his ‘household’ and my mother and I. He simply misplaced management.”

“A few of the issues he has finished have been essentially the most painful issues I’ve ever needed to face in my life,” she added. “[To] See my mother undergo, see Dave undergo, it has been fully unfair.”

Lexi additionally mentioned her mother’s strained relationship with sister Caroline, telling Gia, “I do not assume my mother and her sister can ever restore what’s damaged — it is too far gone, however why cannot the cousins?”

She continued, “It pains me, however the actuality is, from my eyes, they failed me. And I had some actually superior conversations with my cousin — I lover her. I actually do. She’s the closest factor I will have on this lifetime to a sister. And I feel it kills each of us that we do not have one another anymore.”