Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola first made a name for herself on the controversial MTV reality series Jersey Shore, known for dating Ronnie Ortiz-Magro through most of the show. Now, the former reality star is working on a podcast, Just Sayin’. Now that she’s not living it up each summer in the Jersey Shore House, what else has she been doing?
Sammi Giancola Before Jersey Shore
Before being cast on Jersey Shore, Sammi Giancola was a star on her high school soccer team in Hazlet, New Jersey. After graduating, she enrolled at William Paterson University in 2005, where she studied Sociology and played on the women’s soccer team.
In 2009, as a senior, Sammi was cast for the upcoming Jersey Shore. Initially pitched to VH1, the show was felt to have a better fit with MTV, especially after the earlier success of The Hills. In seeking a more authentic documentary style, special attention was paid to casting, to make sure there would be natural development.
Sammi Sweetheart on Jersey Shore
The show was filmed in a summer house in Seasides Heights, New Jersey, using over fifty cameras, 35 permanent fixtures, and distinctive decor. It followed Sammi and the seven other housemates, and initially the show did not receive good ratings. After being lampooned on Saturday Night Live after its third episode, the show very quickly became the #1 show in its timeslot.
But before the fame came instant notoriety. Jersey Shore was known for using the word “guido” (an ethnic slur) frequently and inappropriately. Before the show even aired the show was called “a direct, deliberate, and disgraceful attack on Italian Americans” by Unico National, an organization which represents the ethnicity. Other organizations joined in, with some advertisers asking that their ads not be shown during the show. Even New Jersey Governor Chris Christie acted, vetoing a tax incentive the show had been awarded.
The American public ate up everything about Jersey Shore, though. GTL (Gym, Tan, Laundry) became a known phrase, not just by supporters of the philosophy, but by those who used the show as something to make fun of. A second season was commissioned that winter, so was filmed in Miami, Florida, with the third season returning to the Jersey Shore House.
The fourth season of Jersey Shore was filmed in Italy, and premiered on August 4, 2011. The fifth season was back in Seaside Heights. There were some concerns during that season about the future of the show, due to several cast members receiving spin-off shows. A sixth season, which featured one of the cast members almost eight months pregnant, ran from October to December 2012.
On the show, Sammi Giancola had an on-again-off-again relationship with Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, which lasts through the show’s duration. Known as the “sweetest bitch you’ll ever know,” she spent most of her time emotionally abusing Ronnie, and harassing the other cast.
Sammy From Jersey Shore Now in 2018Â
Since the end of Jersey Shore, Sammi Giancola has continued to be an icon of MTV’s cultivated guido lifestyle. She created Sweetheart Styles, her own online fashion boutique which features a wide variety of identical tight-fitting black clothes, which she promotes actively on Instagram and Twitter. She’s also launched her own line of perfumes, and recently clutches, labelled Dangerous.
In 2014, she and Ronnie Ortiz-Magro ended their relationship. Late last summer, Sammi and two other women started Just Sayin’, a podcast which bills itself as “home of the realest relationship talk.” With Clare Galterio and Siggy Flicker (known for Why Am I Still Single,) Sammi Giancola debates some of the questions raised by modern dating.
Just Sayin’ is available on iTunes and SoundCloud.
In the last pic you got the names all wrong. Clare is on the left, Sammi is in the middle and Siggy is on the right.