Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino on ‘Jersey Shore’
Credit: Jacob Andrzejczak/WireImage
Key Points
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is breaking down the extreme lengths he went to in order to hide his drug use from Jersey Shore producers.
The reality star opened up about the “insanity” on the More Life podcast, beginning with the fact that he hid a rehab stint from MTV during early Jersey Shore casting conversations.
After things “got crazier in season 2,” Sorrentino detailed “car chases” with producers, explosive on-camera confrontations, and even jumping out of a car that carried Snooki and JWoww.
It may be hard to imagine, but the already wild early seasons of Jersey Shore were apparently even wilder behind the scenes.
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, a core cast member for the entire series run of the storied MTV reality series, opened up about the more shocking moments that didn’t make it to air on Tuesday’s episode of the More Life podcast.
“Little do people know, right before Jersey Shore started, I just got out of rehab, like my first rehab,” Sorrentino told host Carl Radke, who has been public with his own addiction struggles while starring on Summer House. “I was just young. It was drinking and it was pills, and when I first went to rehab, I didn’t really know much about myself. I didn’t have the education about addiction… I just was like, ‘Oh, that’s not me.'”
But as the show went from scrappy slice-of-life oddity to global phenomenon, the drug use got “excessive.” And the excess of it all forced Sorrentino to confront the possibility that he did have an addiction problem.
The cast of ‘Jersey Shore’ in 2009
Credit: MTV
Sorrentino said he started off on a dangerous foot, when he “didn’t say anything” about his recent stint in rehab in early Jersey Shore casting conversations. MTV eventually locked him into a role destined for a viral breakout, alongisde Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Jennifer “JWoww” Farley, Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio, and others.
When cameras started rolling, Sorrentino thought, “I’m going to stay away from pills. You know, I’m just going to drink.” The first season “wasn’t too crazy,” so he was able to keep his vow. But “it really got crazier in season 2 once the money came, and then I just let it all hang out.”
Sorrentino described the following seven seasons of the raunchy reality staple as “a roller coaster that you really just had to hold on, and you couldn’t control it. The money was coming in at an excessive level. The parties were excessive, the women were excessive, the drugs were excessive… and that was sort of the beginning of the end.”
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Sorrentino wasn’t just lying to himself about his renewed drug use, he was lying to the producers of the series. “I was trying to be one step ahead of the producers. It was like Mission: Impossible every season because there was a different caper to try to get past production,” he explained. “If I was flying, I was also trying to get past TSA… I was hiding stuff in my shoes in Italy. I was hiding stuff in season 2 in Miami in the bottles of fat burners… unconstituting a pill and reconstituting it with the drug. And then when I was being filmed like 24-7, I’d be smiling because I knew they couldn’t know.”
Sorrentino’s gambits got more and more risky. “The writing was on the wall. The production saw it and the behavior kept getting more out of control as the seasons went on,” but he was “in denial.” Sorrentino said he would “call the lawyer and be like, ‘Oh my God, they’re saying I’m on drugs.’ Meanwhile, when they left talking to me, I would escape… and then as soon as they left, I would call the drug dealer.”
That’s what he described as “the insanity of it all.” MTV even began to “amend the contract” to “penalize” Sorrentino if he lied about using, but it didn’t work. “They would chase after me, and I didn’t want them to follow me after a while. Then it turned into like car chases. It got dangerous.”
Sorrentino said that once he even “jumped out of a moving car [while] Snooki was in the car. JWoww was in the car, and I did that to try to escape the cops that were following, that were there to protect me, the security guards that were there to protect me. I needed to get a little bit of distance in order to get to the drug dealer — in the tanning salon.”
Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino and Ronnie Ortiz-Magro on ‘Jersey Shore: Family Vacation’
Credit: MTV
Looking back on the years-long ordeal now, Sorrentino has gratitude for the MTV crew. “They were essentially trying to save my life, and I was probably one of the most resistant people they’ve ever met,” he said.
Sorrentino has opened up about his hard-partying ways before, admitting in 2023 that he likely spent $500,000 on drugs amid his addiction. After multiple attempts, he finally got sober in 2015. He told PEOPLE after staying sober for eight years that he’s “happy to make it this far… being eight years sober in December, a dad of two, married five years in a happy, healthy marriage — I’m killing the game.”
You can watch Sorrentino’s full interview on More Life above.
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