One warm March afternoon, Jenni Farley sat on a lawn chair in a park in Holmdel, N.J., watching her son, Greyson, play soccer.
To a generation of TV viewers, Farley, 41, is best known as the tough-talking and fiercely loyal JWoww on the MTV reality series “Jersey Shore” and its spinoff, “Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.” But to Greyson, 10, and her daughter, Meilani, 11, Farley’s nearly two-decade career in reality television doesn’t entitle her to any special status.
When her children encounter a reality star from a different franchise, Farley said, “They will be like, ‘Oh my God, they’re so famous.’ I’m like, ‘I have the same job.’ And deadpan, to my face, they’re like: ‘Naah. No you don’t.’ Kids are great at that.”
A few miles away, in Tinton Falls, her “Jersey Shore” castmate Mike Sorrentino (a.k.a. the Situation) walked the halls at Archangels Center, the private clinic he opened to treat people with drug addiction. (He expects to open a second Archangels Center, in East Windsor, N.J., later this year.)
Sorrentino, 44, is a recovering addict who has been sober for more than a decade. He showed off various spaces for individual therapy, video gaming, yoga and group meetings, including a conference area called — what else? — the Situation Room. He explained that he had experienced the full gamut of celebrity, from red-carpet premieres to an eight-month term in prison, and now he would like to use his visibility to do some good.
“I want to help people write their comeback story,” he said. “I’m using the love that I’ve earned over the past 17 years in America’s living rooms, and I take that love very seriously.”
When the ninth and final season of “Jersey Shore: Family Vacation” makes its debut Thursday on MTV, it will be a milestone moment in the saga of these bickering, carousing housemates.
Made famous by the runaway success of the original “Jersey Shore” (which aired from 2009 to 2012) and then returning after a six-year absence for “Family Vacation,” the sometimes loutish but perennially endearing cast members will exit the airwaves along with their bronzed skin and voluminous coifs.
But having been reality stars since the dawn of social media, the iPhone and Bitcoin, the “Jersey Shore” cast now lead lives that are significantly different than when the show started. They have been married and divorced, had children, experienced legal and health problems, branched out into careers.
They are — for better or worse — grown up, and for some time they have been preparing for whatever comes after MTV.
That time is coming sooner than they anticipated, and some cast members said they were surprised by MTV’s seemingly abrupt decision to cancel the show. (MTV offered no explanation for the move.)
But perhaps the “Jersey Shore” housemates have learned a bit of diplomacy in their time on the show. Despite the lack of clarity, they did not express frustration or anger about the cancellation, and preferred to say it was only a matter of time before the show comes back in some form.
“It’s definitely bittersweet — we knew this day was going to come eventually,” said Nicole Polizzi, the diminutive powerhouse known to the world as Snooki, though she no longer wants the nickname used in certain circumstances.
“Snooki is always going to be my brand,” said the 38-year-old Polizzi. “I have my stores, my tanning. But I feel like when it comes to the mommy space, I don’t want my kids calling me Snooki.”
While the people who make “Jersey Shore” are still coping with a certain amount of disbelief that MTV would cancel the show at all, this is tempered by a strong sense of certainty that this isn’t really the end of the turnpike for them and their adventures.
“There is so much gas left in the tank,” said SallyAnn Salsano, the “Jersey Shore” creator.
“We all read the same articles about what’s going on in the industry,” she said. “But I think there’ll be another life for the show. Because there has to be; the fans are too loyal.”
SALSANO HAD HELPED PRODUCE other MTV reality shows like “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” when she came up with “Jersey Shore.”
Originally devised as a talent competition for young men and women who self-identified as “guidos” and “guidettes,” “Jersey Shore” evolved into a documentary series about young people who wished every day could be a beach getaway but weren’t sure what came next in life.
As goofy as the “Jersey Shore” protagonists could be, the show tapped into a spirit of camaraderie that young viewers were apparently craving.
“When I was 26 years old, I was on a twin bed in my parents’ house, and my mom was doing my laundry and packing my lunch,” Salsano explained. “That was really my life. I wasn’t making fun of it as much as I was celebrating it. I think that most people crave that family value more than they crave a BMW.”
Those earliest seasons were an indisputable cultural phenomenon, with the cast members becoming ubiquitous avatars for carefree millennial hedonism. Snooki, JWoww and the Situation were name-checked by President Obama in a speech at the 2010 White House Correspondents Dinner, and the show regularly drew record ratings for MTV. The Season 4 premiere, in August 2011, was watched by almost 8.8 million viewers.
Like the subjects of a “Behind the Music” episode, the cast members also learned the consequences of fame. Sorrentino was hit particularly hard. He became addicted to prescription opioids and was indicted on charges of tax fraud and tax evasion — he pleaded guilty in 2018 to one count of tax evasion and served time in federal prison in 2019.
“I felt like I couldn’t be touched, and nothing was farther from the truth,” Sorrentino said in March. “I was lost, and if I didn’t get sober, I’d be dead.”
The original “Jersey Shore” ended in 2012. Ratings (though still strong) were starting to ebb, and cast members were beginning to branch out and grow up. (Polizzi had her first child in 2012.) MTV gave some of the cast their own shows, like “Snooki & JWoww” and “The Pauly D Project,” and created other domestic and international shore-based spinoffs: “Geordie Shore,” “Warsaw Shore,” “Floribama Shore.”
When the original castmates returned for “Family Vacation” in 2018, they were surprised by how much appetite there still was for the franchise. Those initial seasons of “Family Vacation,” Farley said, were “rock star seasons — I didn’t realize how hard we came back.”
Yet she also felt ambivalence about juggling the show with the challenges she faced in her personal life. Within the span of about a week in 2018, Greyson was diagnosed with autism and Farley filed for divorce from her then-husband, Roger Mathews.
“I felt that all of us deserved a fresh start and a better life,” Farley said. “But I knew when the show came back, you don’t get this shot again. Even with everything going on, I knew this was the best gift anyone could give me.”
Even now, cast members feel the push-and-pull of how much of their lives outside “Jersey Shore” should be fodder for reality TV.
Polizzi was diagnosed with Stage 1 cervical cancer shortly after wrapping filming of the new season of “Family Vacation.” Asked if she was relieved that she did not have to experience that revelation on the show, she said, “I would agree to that.”
But, she added, she still felt obligated to use her visibility to make public-service announcements and help others benefit from her experience.
“I wanted to tell all the girls, you’ve got to get your exams and make sure you’re good,” she said. “Because I definitely put them off, and now here I am.”
WITH SO MUCH STILL happening in the lives of its cast members, Salsano is surprised MTV ended “Jersey Shore.” Asked why the network decided to cancel it, she could only point vaguely to last year’s merger involving MTV’s parent company, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media.
“It’s in that turnover stage, and who knows what comes out the other end,” she said. “But I’m positive and I’m hopeful.”
MTV didn’t rule out working with “Jersey Shore” cast members in the future, but it would not elaborate on the decision to cancel “Family Vacation.”
In an emailed statement, Laurel Weir, the head of programming and acquisitions for Paramount TV Media Brands, said “Jersey Shore” was “one of the most defining franchises in television history,” adding, “The series helped pioneer a new approach to reality storytelling, demonstrating that stories rooted in place, culture and chosen family have the power to connect with audiences globally.”
Salsano held out hope that “Jersey Shore” could still find life on another network or platform. “If we wanted to make the show, I think we’d all work together to make the show,” she said.
Relaxing in her lawn chair at her son’s soccer practice, Farley said she would never completely accept that the “Jersey Shore” franchise was finished.
“I’m not even going to say goodbye,” she said. “It’s like, ‘I’ll see you later.’”
As for the “Family Vacation” series, she said, “I’m glad that it’s ending the way that it is. Don’t get me wrong, would I have loved one or two more? For sure. I’m always up for another one.”
Whenever she next comes back on TV, Farley said, home viewers will have to accept that she is no longer the hard partying JWoww of yesteryear. She now prefers to experience a night at the club through other people’s social media.
“I lost that spark, but I tell my friends I’ll just watch their cute little videos,” she said. “I’ll be in bed drinking tea.”
Dave Itzkoff is a former Times culture reporter.
The post The Sun Sets on ‘Jersey Shore.’ For Now, Anyway. appeared first on New York Times.
