Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi’s rise to fame arrived due to her often wild and unfiltered personality on MTV.
While that was mostly her, Jersey Shore production helped by presenting a show featuring other intriguing cast members and storylines to catch viewers’ attention.
Snooki’s time on the show included an infamous moment years ago during her early days on JS when she was crazy drunk on the boardwalk.
Her drunken behavior resulted in her getting arrested and made for a viral moment in the early history of reality TV.
The popular Jersey Shore star recently recalled that incident while answering fan questions during her podcast with castmate Deena Cortese Buckner.
She claimed that the arrest was encouraged by production, possibly to make the show more interesting.
Snooki claims production encouraged beach arrest
On Thursday’s episode of The Meatball Pod, Snooki and Deena answered fan questions, including one asking if they ever got frustrated with production for “not intervening when s**t hit the fan” with their arrests or other incidents.
“So this is a good question because I feel like in your arrest, they told them to arrest you,” Deena said to her castmate, who agreed.
“Oh yeah, I watched the footage because my lawyer had to see everything that went down, and I had to go to court and all this s**t,” Snooki said.
“It was really dramatic. Everyone treated it like I was Lindsay Lohan. It was wild,” she said, adding, “So we had to watch the footage, and I heard the producers saying ‘Arrest her. Arrest her,’ to the cops.”
Snooki indicated she didn’t know if Jersey Shore producers did that to prevent her from getting in more trouble or was just “good for the show.”
What was Snooki’s beach arrest on Jersey Shore?
Jersey Shore debuted in 2009 and ultimately launched Snooki and her castmates, including Deena, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio and Vinny Guadagnino, to fame.
In July 2010, Snooki was involved in an incident while filming the show’s third season in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. The JS star got drunk and went down the boardwalk area, causing all sorts of mayhem as castmates JWoww and Deena tried to chase after her.
She famously and hilariously asked, “Where’s the beach?!” during her drunken moments as she was already near or on the beach.
Ultimately, the police got involved and arrested Snooki for disorderly conduct due to her yelling at various people on the beach and falling into the sand.
As she was being handcuffed, she told the cops, “I’m a good person.”
As Snooki mentioned, her arrest led to court appearances, with her initially released after she agreed to return for a court appearance later. A judge ordered her to perform community service and pay a fine, calling her a “Lindsay Lohan wannabe” during the sentence.
That was over 13 years ago and helped Snooki surge in popularity as one of the iconic characters in reality TV history. Based on her retelling of the incident, it seems that production helped her avoid further charges and furthered her famous career by filming her and encouraging the arrest.
Jersey Shore: Family Vacation airs Thursdays at 8/7c on MTV.