Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has always loved to party, but now, he’s revealed things were even more intense than fans saw on “Jersey Shore.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 23: Michael Sorrentino speaks during the Jersey Shore Family Vacation Premiere at Marquee New York on April 23, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Manny Carabel/Getty Images for MTV)
“Little do people know, right before Jersey Shore started, I just got out of rehab, like my first rehab,” Sorrentino told “Summer House” cast member Carl Radke on the “More Life” podcast. “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 self. I didn’t have the education about addiction … I just was like, ‘Oh, that’s not me.'”
“I had just gotten back from rehab and I sat down with the casting producers and I didn’t say anything about it. They had no idea,” he explained. “And then I went on ‘Jersey Shore’ and I thought I could just I was like, you know what? I’m gonna stay away from pills. I’m just gonna drink. I’m too young to hang it up now.”
LOS ANGELES, CA – DECEMBER 19: Jersey Shore cast (L-R) Jenni ‘Jwoww’ Farley Ronnie Ortiz-Magro Sammi ‘Sweetheart’ Giancola, Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino, Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi,Paul ‘Pauly D’ DelVecchio,Vinny Guadagnino arrive at Fox’s “The X Factor” Season Finale Night 1 at CBS Television City on December 19, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Sorrentino said he was able to abstain from pills while filming season one, noting the initial season “wasn’t too crazy.” “It really got crazier in season two once the money came, and then I just let it all hang out,” he said.
Regarding his initial six seasons on the MTV show, Sorrentino said, “It was like 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, drugs were excessive … and that was sort of the beginning of the end.”
ELMONT, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 07: Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino attends the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards at UBS Arena on September 07, 2025 in Elmont, New York. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images for MTV)
Sorrentino said he went to great lengths to hide his drug use from the show’s producers. “I was hiding stuff in my shoes in Italy. I was hiding stuff in season two in Miami in the bottles of fat burners. I was, you know, unconstituting a pill and then reconstituting it with the drug,” he admitted. “And then when I was being filmed like 24/7, I’d be smiling, you know, because I knew they couldn’t know, right? How would they know what was inside those pills? But I was fooling myself.”
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 18: Mike Sorrentino attends the 2024 People’s Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on February 18, 2024 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
However, it was only a matter of time before the reality TV star got caught. “The writing was on the wall,” he explained. “Like, the production saw it and the behavior kept getting more out of control as the seasons went on to the point where it was just unavoidable.” Sorrentino said producers would sit him down and confront him about his drug use, but he was “in denial” and would “play the victim.”
“[The producers] would come in and be like, ‘Listen, it’s okay. We want to help you.’ And I’d be like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And then as soon as they left, I would call the drug dealer,” Sorrentino recalled.
Now, Sorrentino appreciates the “Jersey Shore” producers and what they were trying to do. “They were essentially trying to save my life, and I was probably one of the most resistant people they’ve ever met,” he said.
In this March 29, 2018 file photo, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino arrives at the “Jersey Shore Family Vacation” premiere in Los Angeles. Sorrentino is seeking probation when he’s sentenced Friday on tax charges, while prosecutors want a sentence of 14 months. Sorrentino pleaded guilty in January to concealing his income in 2011 by making cash deposits that wouldn’t trigger federal reporting requirements. He and his brother were charged in 2014 with multiple tax offenses related to nearly $9 million in income. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)
Today, the MTV star is sober. In 2023, he told People, “I’ll be honest with you. I’m happy to make it this far. I was so wild in my twenties and thirties that being the family man that I am today — being eight years sober in December, a dad of two, married five years in a happy, healthy marriage — I’m killing the game.”
Follow us on Instagram @WeArePauseRewind for all your pop culture obsessions.