The first season of Jersey Shore Family Vacation premiered on MTV last week, reuniting seven housemates from the original Jersey Shore. Six years after that series ended in 2012, some fans were wondering: Have Snooki, JWoww, Pauly D, The Situation, and the rest of the cast grown up and matured?
Nope.
"It was like we didn’t skip a beat," Snooki told The Hollywood Reporter this weekend. "Even though we’re older now, we are still hot messes. Nothing has changed. None of us have changed. When we get together, we have this energy about us where we just want to have a good time and don’t care and just go crazy. Obviously, I’m not going out looking for guys anymore, I’m not being promiscuous anymore, because I have a family and am content with that. But I am still going out and getting drunk and being stupid."
Pauly D agrees. The 37-year-old says the crew is getting even wilder this time around, because they're making up for lost time—and escaping from their families.
"What you can expect is exactly what you have missed," Pauly D says. "The chemistry we have and we always had is still there. We went a bit harder this time because we missed each other so much. And it was a vacation, it was Miami. Everybody has lives now, they have families, so this was a vacation from that. So it’s what you know and love, but times 10."
Snooki admits that she was initially a little concerned about being able to live up the 2012 version of herself. "I just think we are all surprised at the fact that we can still go hard and go crazy," she notes. "Going in, we were like, ‘How are we going to party now?’ We’re older now, the hangovers are worse. But we just kept it going."
She also reveals to The Hollywood Reporter that she felt some guilt about leaving her family to do the show. "I kept having to tell myself I am working for them, this is all for them, and I am also having my vacation that I never have," she explains. "I am a 24-hour mom at home. So this is my time to have fun. I don’t have any responsibility here, I don’t have to change a diaper, I don’t have to wake up at 7 to bring my son to school. This is my time to just wake up and have a drink and enjoy myself with my friends. But the mom guilt was definitely there."
It's all paying off for the cast—and for MTV. The premiere episode received impressive ratings, scoring 2.4 million viewers for the first episode and 2.6 million for the second.
The first episode made good on Pauly D's promise that the reunion would be a "complete shit show" as former cast member Angelina surprised everyone by returning to the series.
As J-Woww put it, "Literally, shit goes down! Shit goes down! She’s not normal! That bitch is crazy!"
Yeah. They were right. Nothing has changed.
