On Thursday, a new season of Jersey Shore starts. Like Vanderpump Rules, this long-running show is getting a lot of free publicity because of some very messy drama.
As we’ve said before, Sammi Giancola will come back to Shore after being away for a few years.
When MTV brought the show back in 2017 as Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, Sammi had a good reason not to return.
As people who have watched the show for a while now, Sammi was in an abusive relationship with Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, so it makes sense that she didn’t want to live with him again and work on a funny show with him.
When people first heard that Sammi was coming back, they thought it was proof that Ronnie had finally been fired from the show.
Magro has been arrested several times for domestic violence in the years since he and Sammi broke up, and it’s not a good look for MTV to make Sammi choose between her career and her safety.
But Ronnie is back on the Shore after he finished an inpatient rehab program, which surprised a lot of people.
According to reports, Magro and Giancola have already filmed a few scenes together for the next season.
MTV hasn’t said anything about the controversial decision to bring Ronnie back yet, but it looks like Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is going to speak up for his friend.
“Ronnie spent a lot of time taking care of his mental health for a long time. Mike told Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast this week, “I think that’s a susceptible subject, and not everyone knows how to deal with it.”
Sorrentino said, “I had been checking in with Ron for a long time. As he kept doing the right thing, we saw Ron more, and that’s why you see him on the season this year: he kept doing the right thing.”
Mike knows more about his friend’s mind than we do, so it’s clear that he does.
But that doesn’t mean it was the right or even safe choice for MTV to bring Magro back for another season of Shore, especially now that one of his victims has returned to the cast.
Even though Sammi is fine working with Ronnie, his other two accusers are probably wondering if and when their alleged abuser will be held responsible by his bosses.
Some people say that Ronnie hasn’t gone to jail yet for any of the charges against him, but he probably would have if he hadn’t made a deal that let him get off probation.
No matter what happened, the many complaints from different women and Ronnie’s strange behavior on camera should have been enough for MTV to end Magro’s contract.
The stars of Jersey Shore think of themselves as family, and, likely, Mike isn’t the only one who spoke up for Ronnie to his bosses.
But we wish someone on the cast had thought about how it would look to film a funny “reality sitcom” with someone as volatile and possibly dangerous as Ronnie Magro.