Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola says Ronnie Ortiz-Magro feels more like a colleague than an ex-boyfriend as she makes her return to the new season of “Jersey Shore Family Vacation.”
“It’s just like a co-worker at this point,” Giancola tells Pvnew’s Evan Real and Danny Murphy as part of our new video series, “24 Hours.”
After taking an 11-year hiatus from the hit MTV show, Giancola gushes that she’s “personally in a great place” after reuniting with Ortiz-Magro, with whom she had a tumultuous five-year relationship.
“I’m kind of, like, moved on from that vibe. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that vibe. So I kind of do my own thing and, like, keep it at that,” she says of her ex.
While she keeps tight-lipped on her interactions with her ex, she says she “wish[es] him the best” as long as “whatever he’s doing is positive.”
Ortiz-Magro, 37, also returned to the show in a reduced role after a brief hiatus to focus on his sobriety and mental health.
“A lot of people forget I dated him when I was in my younger 20s,” Giancola points out. “I’m 36, I dated multiple people after him, I’ve gone through life, so yeah, it’s just like a co-worker at this point.”
Giancola gave the show another chance after becoming “more mature” and having the ability to “handle situations differently than when I was 22 years old.”
“I’m just hoping that all goes well this time around. And if it doesn’t,” she says with a laugh, “I’ll just leave again.”
Giancola and Ortiz-Magro had a volatile relationship when they dated on and off for five years before calling it quits for good in 2014.
Cast member Angelina Pivarnick persuaded Giancola to return to the “Jersey Shore” spinoff.
“I like that I was actually able to pull it off and everybody else couldn’t,” Pivarnick, 37, boasts to us, referring to her co-stars attempting and failing to get Giancola to come back. “She and I always had a bond.”
Pivarnick reveals that she and the producers were the only ones in on the “top-secret” information before MTV broke the news in March.
“The producers really were amazing about not telling anybody,” she recalls.
When Giancola did arrive to the trip at Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains, “everyone’s mouths were on the floor.”
Giancola admits that her return to the show was “definitely overwhelming,” and she couldn’t help but ask herself, “What am I doing? What am I getting myself into?”
Despite her decade-long absence, Giancola gushes that as soon as she began filming, it felt “like I never left.”
“It just feels good to be back in that environment, having fun with everybody,” she tells us. “I really enjoyed bonding with the girls again. That was a cross off my checklist, because I really missed out on those friendships for so long.”
As for how long she plans to stay on the reboot, Giancola tells us she “would love to do it for however long everybody does it, as long as it’s positive, on a good note, and we’re all having fun.”
“Jersey Shore Family Vacation” Season 6B premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.
