“Real Housewives of New Jersey” is set to debut its new season this summer but Dina Manzo will not be a part of the cast.

“I went through my divorce this year so I moved out to California so it didn’t make sense,” Manzo said in our FOX411 studio. “Of course, they asked me back and I thought about it for a minute and then I’m like, ‘How am I supposed to do this? I live

there. I have an apartment here in Manhattan but I don’t live in New Jersey, so I don’t see how that could work.”

While Manzo has had her personal struggles, close friend Teresa Giudice has recently completed her prison stint and now her husband, Joe, is serving out his sentence.

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“She’s the strongest woman I know, really,” Manzo said of her friend. “We’ve known each other since we were 21 years old and we’re forty-something now so – it’s a long friendship and she just makes the best out of every situation and she’s so strong and she’s there for her family. I admire her. I really do in that way that she just lives in the moment and she’s just like, ‘OK, let’s just forge ahead and let’s make the best of this.”

Manzo is making the best of her TV-free life by starting up a new skincare line, Glow by Dina, which launched on Mother’s Day. Manzo started in the beauty business at 17, and says her lifelong passion for cosmetics led to her non-toxic, paraben-free products.

“It’s clean, it’s fragrant free and formulated by four dermatologists so they know a lot about skin,” she said, adding a percentage of the proceeds from Glow by Dina will go to her charity, Project Ladybug, that benefits children with cancer.