Will Teresa Be An Even Bigger Star Post-Prison?

It's an unfortunate reality, but most people who are sent to prison have a difficult time assimilating to everyday life when they get out — and an even more impossible time finding employment. Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice is going to have the opposite problem when she is released. She already has huge career plans, and I'm ready to bet the farm that she is going to make so much money and increase her star power that, in two years, no one will even remember she spent time behind bars for fraud.

In January, the 43-year-old mother of four pleaded guilty to mortgage and bankruptcy fraud, along with her husband, Joe. She was sentenced to 15 months in prison, but according to her lawyer, she'll be released early and should be out of jail by Christmas 2015. She will then spend about two months, until Feb. 5 or 6, in home confinement, reports E! News.

If this sounds terrible, remember that it still beats what was rumored to be the original plan with a stick. Last year, Radar reported that Giudice would be sent to a halfway house after her prison release, would be forced to get a day job to earn her keep, and stay at the boarding home for two months. A reality show created around the halfway house alone would have made for must-see TV because there's no way on God's green earth Giudice would have survived that hell.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong about her because, according to her lawyer, prison has been very good for the reality star and has forced her to get in touch with a side of herself she had neglected for some time. "She's taking care of her body, she's taking care of her mind," Attorney James L. Leonard told E! News. "She's making her family's looked after [sic]. She's reprioritizing things in her life."

He continued, "I think she's going to emerge stronger, more focused. She's getting back in touch with her faith. She's spending a lot of time praying in there and I think the Teresa that comes out of prison is going to wow people."

Giudice has reportedly signed her contract to appear in the seventh season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, according to Radar, and the show's producers are more than willing to wait until she has been released to begin shooting. I mean, of course they are. Everyone will want to watch and see how she has adjusted to her new post-prison life. On the one hand, you have a more spiritual Giudice, if her lawyer is to be believed, who has perhaps managed to control her anger, and on the other hand, you have a woman who has to adjust to a world in which she isn't the ideal "housewife" anymore.

Hell to the yes, I'll be tuning in.

If you're already lamenting the possible loss of the ferocious Teresa you know and love, perhaps this will cheer you up: Radar says a source has revealed Giudice is already refusing to shoot scenes with Jacqueline Laurita. And producers, who know their bread will be buttered up to the sky if they can nab Giudice, may consider asking Laurita not to return just so they can sweeten the pot for the incarcerated housewife.

Such delicious drama — and Giudice has seven months in prison left to go — who knows what else will develop!

Images: Getty Images