The cast of Jersey Shore is still processing the return of Ronnie Ortiz-Magro.
This season of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation featured the 37-year-old reality star briefly coming back to the show to apologize to his castmates. Most of them – barring Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino – hadn’t seen Ronnie since he left the show two years ago to seek treatment for mental health issues amid some legal troubles. So you can imagine the reunion had been emotional at the time, with a lot of tears shed by the cast.
Related: Mike Convinced Wife To Let Him Sell Sex Tape After Blowing Money On Drugs
Even though some time has passed since the meeting, the cast is reeling from what went down with Ron. When asked about his friendship with him in a preview for part two of the reunion, Mike said they had kept in touch over the past few years while Ronnie was figuring things out for himself. He got to a better place in his life eventually. But when the 41-year-old found out Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola was coming back to the show, he knew Ronnie’s return needed to be handled delicately:
“There’s always check-ins, you know, over the past couple of years. He’s been absent. He has been addressing his mental health. Things started to go in a positive direction. Obviously, we didn’t know that Sam was going to come back, so once she did come back, it was a scramble to try to maneuver this very delicate situation.”
Sammi wanted absolutely nothing to do with her ex-boyfriend, which is why she was “thankful” for how her co-stars handled the situation and didn’t “just surprise” her with the news of Ronnie’s appearance. The 36-year-old said:
“It would have been so bad if they did that.”
Could you have imagined the argument that would’ve erupted? It might have been worse than the explosive fight between Sammi and Jenni “JWoww” Farley over the infamous note!
When Ronnie faced his cast members, without Sam, Jenni just remembered how the whole thing was “hard” to go through. She explained:
“It’s hard because I had a really good relationship with him and honestly, there was a lot of damage there. So, it was really hard to digest.”
Even Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi struggled with the reunion. She became emotional when Ronnie delivered his apology note because she was super close with” him, adding:
“He was like my brother — my big brother. When he walked in, he just looked so nervous. I was willing to listen to him because the fact that he’s here, he’s going to talk to all of us, he pulled out a piece of paper with, like, his feelings [on it]. It broke my heart because at some point in my life, I did love him so much.”
Oof. But where do the cast members stand with him today? Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait and see in future episodes how they get along. But for Sammi, she plans to “deal with” it if he returns to the show again. The business owner noted she always “knew” when she came back to Jersey Shore there was a chance Ronnie “might” do the same:
“Their relationships with him doesn’t affect my relationships with these people anymore. We’re too separate [people]. We’re adults. I can totally handle it. From this point on, he’s a coworker that I just have to deal with. But I don’t need to associate with him and we can just keep it moving.”
We’ve already seen the two filming together again, so it sounds like things are working out so far! Watch the teaser for the reunion (below):
Reactions, Perezcious readers? Were you glad to see Ronnie return this season? Let us know in the comments.
[Image via Jersey Shore/YouTube]
