Mike Sorrentino found himself in a desperate situation that nearly had him releasing a secret sex tape to the world.
The Jersey Shore star recently recalled a tough time in his life when he was facing a financial crisis amid his struggles with sobriety and legal problems.
In past years, Sorrentino’s addiction to painkillers was one of his major issues, so much so that he’d even smuggle them on set at times.
The 41-year-old MTV star also served time in prison for tax evasion four years ago.
He’s since turned things around as he’s celebrated eight years of sobriety, is back on the Jersey Shore: Family Vacation spinoff, and has two children with his wife, Lauren, and a third child on the way.
As he prepares for the official release of his new book, he shares details about some of the lowest points in his life. That included an instance that had him in such a bind that he was prepared to sell his explicit video.
The Situation had a secret video he was ready to sell
For The Situation, desperate times almost brought desperate measures as he recently recalled his contemplating the release of a sex video he had as “an insurance policy.”
Ahead of the December release of his new book, Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation – How I Overcame Addiction, Loss, and Prison, Sorrentino spoke with ET. He talked about his struggles with drugs and money, which had him attempting to sell his explicit video.
“There was one. I think it’s been destroyed… the video wasn’t released [because] the offers weren’t good enough,” Sorrentino revealed per ET Online.
“They were a combo of revenue from the sales or streams. It wasn’t as big of an upfront payment as I wanted. It wasn’t Jersey Shore money, so I wasn’t going to put myself out there like that,” he said.
Sorrentino said he consulted with his team and even prepared his girlfriend and mother for the potential fallout if he sold the video.
“I was down on my luck, and I wanted to soften the fall, and there was that emergency sex tape. I had to tell my mother and Lauren, ‘I have to do this, it’s been here for years.’ And we went down that journey of selling it and we decided not to,” he said.
Sorrentino said his lowest point was trying a deadly drug
The explicit video was never sold or released, with Sorrentino indicating he believed it’s since been destroyed. However, that wasn’t his ultimate low point. He said it was trying a drug that could’ve cost him his life.
“When I finally got to rehab in 2015 that was definitely my low, but my lowest was like a day or so before that, when I did something I never thought I was gonna do,” Sorrentino shared.
“I ended up trying a drug that I never thought I would try. A drug that kills most people. A drug that most people don’t come back from. A drug that I told myself that I would never do, that I thought was dirty. It was heroin,” he said.
During that time in his life, Sorrentino said he had an addiction to oxycodone. He said he felt “depressed and [with] anxiety and self-doubt” and “wanted to get out of that space mentally.”
Being a reality TV star also brought him money, which he said fueled the fire of his drug habits. According to Sorrentino, he spent about $500,000 on his habit.
“I mean, when the lawyers told me, ‘You spent about half a million on cocaine and oxycodone,’ I was like, ‘Man, that definitely sounds about right,’ because it was true,” he says. “I got to the point in my life I couldn’t hide it anymore,” he shared.
“I got to the point where I needed to do something different, and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Once I started to become sober, I really just turned everything over and was doing everything differently,” he told ET.
Sorrentino has since overcome his struggles and said that his daily group hug with his family is the best part about sobriety.
“The smiles that I see, you know, it’s just, it’s all worth it — all the pain, all the struggle, all the sacrifice — it’s all worth it,” he said.
Jersey Shore: Family Vacation Season 7 is TBA on MTV.