Jersey Shore star Vinny Guadagnino is happy to have his castmates Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola and Ronnie Ortiz-Magro back on Family Vacation.
They both returned in different capacities for Season 6 of the MTV spinoff show, which was a big deal, as Sammi hadn’t been on MTV since leaving the original Jersey Shore behind.
Ronnie’s return seems to feature far less screentime than Sammi’s, but it was also a big deal due to the emotions involved with him addressing his castmates and issuing an apology.
The popular MTV spinoff Family Vacation already features castmates Angelina Pivarnick, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Deena Cortese, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, and Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio.
While Vinny and those other cast members are full-timers, he seems like he’d like to have both Sammi and Ronnie back together again, not as a couple, but as permanent castmates.
He recently opened up about their situations with Family Vacation to Too Fab, celebrating Sammi’s return and commenting about what it will take for Ronnie to join the show again.
Vinny says Sammi is back for as long as she wants
In Season 6, castmates are surprised by the return of Sammi Giancola, who finally comes back to do the show with them. Her ex-boyfriend Ronnie isn’t part of the crew due to taking time away from the show.
Family Vacation episodes have featured Sammi reconnecting with her castmates and getting caught up on everyone’s lives, including their relationships, marriages, divorces, and children.
She’s mentioned how seamlessly she fell back into her spot with the group as they felt like family that she’d just taken a vacation away from. Vinny thinks that she’ll be able to stay on the show as long as it’s on the air.
“Sam is back, like, full effect back, for as many seasons as MTV wants to do with us,” he told Too Fab.
She’s previously mentioned in interviews that the time away helped her become more mature and able to handle the drama of the reality TV show better.
While her Jersey Shore castmate and ex, Ronnie, isn’t with them at first, he’ll show up during the second half of Season 6, making for some intriguing moments.
The JS castmates dated from 2009 to 2016 after connecting on the original MTV show, but they had a toxic relationship, with Sammi staying away from the Family Vacation spinoff until just recently.
During her return season, viewers and cast members also meet Sammi’s new boyfriend, Justin May, whom she’s been dating for several years and seems happy with. As of this writing, it’s unknown how much interaction Sammi and Ronnie will have or if it will only happen as part of the larger group conversation.
Ronnie’s return to Family Vacation remains unclear
Regarding Ronnie going back to full-time on Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, Vinny says the cast is “slowly” working to get him back on the show. However, it will be based on him and “figuring out his personal issues.”
“I think those decisions aren’t up to me or anything, but from a personal, just friendship level, we want him to just be … back in the day, things were crazy. It was constant toxic relationship stuff, ups and downs, always a new news article coming out. It got [to be] too much,” Vinny told Too Fab.
In a midseason trailer, viewers see an emotional scene featuring a teary-eyed Ronnie as he speaks with his castmates and offers an apology, saying he’d lost a lot in his life over the past year or so.
“So once he’s out of that, then we would like to have him back, and then yeah, Sammi’s back,” Vinny said.
“So I guess they’d be together then. That’s the goal!” he joked about his castmates returning to the show.
Just recently, Ronnie also said he “would love” to return permanently to the MTV show, mentioning he loved his castmates and felt viewers wanted to see him back. If he is able to return and Sammi decides to stick around, all of the original crew will finally be intact to enjoy some fun-filled Family Vacation time together.
Jersey Shore: Family Vacation airs on Thursdays at 8/7c on MTV.