When Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi came crashing into the Jersey Shore house shouting, “Party’s here,” she didn’t have intentions of still being on reality TV 15 years later. But, here she is — still on MTV, thriving and filming Season 8B of Jersey Shore Family Vacation.
Her life definitely looks a lot different these days. She’s a mother of three and has traded those wild nights of fist-pumping at Karma for driving to football games, chaperoning cheer practice, and cleaning up a whole lot of life’s little messes.
We recently caught up with the reality TV superstar to get the tea on motherhood, life as a pop-culture icon, and why she just partnered with Lysol to launch the StinkCheck. And of course, we didn’t let her get away without getting her hot take on the current state of reality TV. We found out what she loves to watch, and why she had to say no to The Traitors.
Nicole conquers the mess, on and off TV
Whether it’s typing up a note about a cheating boyfriend or crashing into a cop car in Italy, Nicole has navigated plenty of messy moments on reality TV. She’s literally an expert. That’s why she recently teamed up with Lysol Air Sanitizer for the StinkCheck, a drama-free way to handle stinky conversations and life’s funkiest messes. She told us it’s all about learning how to “share the love, not the stink.”
“I’ve been a fan of Lysol for so long, like using it always,” Nicole told us. “I wish I had this when, you know, I was living with the roommates, because do you remember that house? Like that house was a mess and disgusting, and I feel like that would have done wonders in our house.”
“I feel like we were all pretty gross,” she admitted.
These days, Nicole has her hands full with plenty of household messes that can’t go ignored like they did in Seaside Heights. Her 13-year-old son Lorenzo plays football. Her 11-year-old daughter, Giovanna, is a cheerleader. And her youngest, a six-year-old bundle of energy, “just makes a mess wherever he goes.” With all of that chaos, Snooki said that Lysol products help keep her high-traffic areas from turning into biohazards.
“My mudroom is my biggest issue,” she groaned. “After sports, I’m spraying in there because I just can’t handle it.”
When it’s time to tackle the whole house, she waits for the kiddos to go to bed. That way, she has free rein over the house to get things tidied up. She can rest easy knowing that the house is clean, ready for more destruction the next day.
Reality TV icon, or just mom?
Being a mom of three is a full-time job, but Nicole somehow manages to do it all, while also running The Snooki Shop and filming Jersey Shore Family Vacation. It’s an exciting life, but her kids aren’t overly impressed.
“Lorenzo hates it,” Nicole said with a straight face. “He knows like I’m on TV, and I do all the things, but he’s just like, ‘Mom, you’re embarrassing.’”
Nicole is confident that her kids will eventually be like, “Wow, mom, you’re so cool!” Until then, she’s hitting him with the StinkCheck when he comes rolling in after football practice. She said being blunt on reality TV helped her develop a direct communication style with her kids.
She recalled, “Back in the day [on Jersey Shore], I feel like we were all just so messy that we just lived in it until we were like, ‘All right, someone has to shower because it stinks in here,’ or, ‘You’ve got to do your laundry because it’s starting to get gross.’ So I feel like we were all just really blunt and would tell it how it is.”
Nicole continued, “So I feel like I do that with my kids. I’m just like, ‘Your stuff really stinks. We have to wash this. We’ve gotta keep this up because we don’t want to be stinky kids.’”
Some words of advice for future reality stars
With over 15 years of reality TV under her belt, Nicole knows a thing or two about the genre. She lives it, but she’s still a big fan. She said a couple of her favs include RuPaul’s Drag Race and Love Is Blind. With the latter, however, she said it sometimes gets frustrating watching people be so thirsty to be on reality TV. It’s a level of fakeness that she can see through in an instant, and she had some words of advice.
“I mean, I get it because I was there. I wanted to be a reality star, be famous for like 15 minutes, then go back to my life. That was the plan, but it didn’t happen like that,” Nicole confessed.
She added, “You just have to be yourself, and you can’t force it to be something you’re not because people can tell. And you can’t keep that up for long, so just be yourself.”
Nicole says she’s “done it all” on reality TV
Being herself is what has kept Nicole in the game for this long, and she’s not done yet. Jersey Shore Family Vacation Season 8B is currently filming, which will follow Sammi Giancola’s wedding and pregnancy. It’s a gig that Nicole feels grateful for, and she’s not itching to jump on any show that calls her up.
“I’ve done it all. I’m good to go,” she told us, revealing that she quickly shot down an invite to The Traitors after unsuccessful stints on Dancing with the Stars and The New Celebrity Apprentice.
She recalled, “I knew the second day on [Celebrity Apprentice]. I was like, ‘This is not for me. I don’t like this at all.'”
“It was kind of like throwing people under the bus, and I hate doing that. I like watching it, but I don’t like being involved in it,” Nicole continued. “They already asked, and I said no. I can’t. I will watch it. I’m a fan, but I cannot be involved.”
Naturally, Nicole said that part of her reasoning was her kids. She doesn’t like being away from home for that long. Can you imagine how much Lysol she’d need if she were off filming shows for weeks at a time? That’s why Jersey Shore Family Vacation works so well for her.
“It’s three days max for me for work, and then I have to be home. If I can’t see my kids at all for like a month, I’m going to freak out. So yeah, it’s a no for me,” Nicole told us.
Honestly? Fair. With her mudroom basically being a full-time job, three kids at home, and a thriving business, you’ve got to appreciate that Nicole knows her priorities. She’s still keeping it real, but these days, she’s also keeping it clean.
Jersey Shore Family Vacation is streaming on Paramount+.
TELL US – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON NICOLE’S FULL-TIME FOCUS ON MOTHERHOOD? ARE YOU SURPRISED BY HOW MUCH SHE HAS EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS? ARE YOU BUMMED TO HEAR SHE TURNED DOWN THE TRAITORS?
