Jo-Ellen Tiberi and Rulla Nehme Pontarelli have declared their feud officially over.
The “Real Housewives of Rhode Island” stars, who spent Season 1 tearing into each other on camera, revealed they had reconciled when “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts Danny Murphy and Evan Real caught up with them in the crowd at the 2026 VRT Awards. The ceremony, held earlier this week and sponsored by Tri-State Cadillac, CoverGirl, Philo and Kahlúa, became the unlikely venue for the pair’s unexpected truce.
“We’ve had an epiphany,” Rulla told Murphy and Real. “Jo-Ellen realized that I have feelings, that I’m innocent; we’ve bridged the gap.”
Tiberi, for her part, pointed to a specific breakthrough in the Pontarelli marriage as the turning point. Rulla’s husband, Brian Pontarelli, had finally come clean about his affair with another woman.
“They moved past it, and that’s the best thing,” Tiberi said. “I was vindicated.”
The roots of their hostility predated the show itself. Before “RHORI” Season 1 cameras ever rolled, Rulla had accused Tiberi of spreading gossip around town about Brian’s infidelity and circulating photos of him with his alleged mistress. Brian had repeatedly denied the affair was ongoing, insisting his relationship with the unnamed woman — later identified as Cranston-based medical aesthetician Beth Walker — was finished.
Tiberi refused to let the matter drop. She kept digging, eventually surfacing a video of Brian and Walker that was allegedly recorded during Season 1 filming, plus additional incriminating photos that had appeared on social media. The feud deepened when Tiberi claimed the Pontarellis had tried to get her fired from her office job at a local aesthetics center.
The two women brought their animosity to the Season 1 reunion in full force. Tiberi pressed Rulla on whether Brian had still been married to his ex-wife when he and Rulla got together more than a decade prior, and she stood by her assertion that the Walker affair was active during filming. The exchange grew vicious: Rulla hurled insults, calling Tiberi a “slut,” while Tiberi threatened to “break” Rulla’s newly redone nose. The two-part reunion ended with no resolution between them.
“RHORI” Season 2, which recently wrapped filming, appears to have provided the reset the women needed. At the VRT Awards, they joined their fellow cast members on stage to accept the trophy for “Best Cast,” presenting a united front that would have seemed impossible months earlier.
Brian Pontarelli, meanwhile, used his own red carpet time to project marital stability. Speaking to the outlet earlier in the evening, he framed the couple’s troubles as a lesson for others.
“I’ve grown as a person, we’ve grown together, and the most important thing is that our family is very strong,” he said. “If we can just show other families going through the same thing that with hard work and dedication and, most importantly, love, we can get through it.”
The Pontarellis, parents of two children, are presenting themselves as more solid than ever despite the public unraveling of Brian’s affair. Whether Tiberi and Rulla’s reconciliation proves durable remains an open question, particularly once Season 2 airs and viewers see how their renewed friendship played out during production.
The 2026 VRT Awards are streaming exclusively on Philo’s free ad-supported platform, with full show availability beginning Oct. 9.