Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, who you may remember as an original member of the Jersey Shore back when it debuted on MTV in 2009, is returning to the show this week!
The original show ran from 2009 to 2012 before a revival series, Jersey Shore: Family Vacation debuted in 2018. The revival series saw each of the original cast members – Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio, Angelina Pivarnick, Vinny Guadagnino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Deena Cortese – return. Sammi, however, opted not to come back.
However, the new season, which debuts on Thursday (August 3), will see the return of Sammi Sweetheart!
Now, Sammi, 36, is explaining why she didn’t join the series and why she’s finally decided to come back.
Keep reading to find out more…
Of her break from the show, she told Variety, “I needed the time to regroup and figure out my own life. I wasn’t in a good head space. I just couldn’t do the show back then. And I’m happy that I’m able to be able to come back and do it now.”
“I missed filming all those years. Why not come back and try it again, give it a shot, and see if I like it,” she added. “I didn’t have any bad blood with anybody through the years, I was just living my own life.”
Of her tumultuous relationship with Ronnie, she said, “At this point, he’s just a guy I dated in my 20’s. We all go through relationships. He’s basically just a co-worker at this point,” So how did their on-air reunion go? Sammi shared, “I guess you’re gonna see how the season plays out,” but has grown quite a bit since that time.
Now, this is a deeper cut if you haven’t seen Jersey Shore. But remember that note that Jwoww and Snooki wrote to Sam, anonymously, to tell her that Ronnie had cheated? Variety also asked Sam about that one, too.
The note, in full, read: “Sam, The first night at bed when you left, Ron made out with 2 girls and put his head between a cocktail waitress’s breasts. Also was grinding with multiple fat women. When you left crying at klutch, Ron was holding hands and dancing with a female and took down her number. Multiple people in the house know, therefore you should know the truth.”
In reaction today, Sammi shared, “I’m definitely at a point where I can laugh at it and make a joke out of it. I feel like the note will forever be by my side,” she said. “I kind of have no choice! It’s funny now. A lot of people, I feel like, go through the whole cheating thing, especially in your 20’s. Mine just so happened to be on TV. I went through it all with friendships, cheating, bad relationships. So it’s just kind of funny now to look back and be like, ‘What a crazy time in my life.’”
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