16 surprising things you never knew about MTV's 'Jersey Shore' (2024)

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Fans can stay at the actual shore house from "Jersey Shore" for a few thousand dollars per night.

As of July 2018, the real-life house from the show is listed on Booking.com and it holds about 11 guests for roughly $3,000 per night.

The home has six bedrooms and is just a four-minute walk from the famed Seaside Heights Boardwalk. And, yes, the infamous duck phone is included in the home, per Booking.com's photo tour.

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The show was originally supposed to be a competition series.

Although "Jersey Shore" is a fly-on-the-wall reality show much like MTV's hit "Real World," it was actually meant to be a competition show called "Guidos," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

It wasn't even supposed to be on MTV — it was originally a VH1 project. As casting searched for the perfect guidos to compete for who was the "best guido," they eventually changed course, and "Jersey Shore" became the reality show we know today.

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It was supposed to have an all-male cast.

The show was originally supposed to have an all-male cast of "guidos," but producers quickly changed course because they knew making the cast co-ed would introduce more drama.

"Girls entered the mix because I kept saying, 'Look, the boys preen' — you know, they're peaco*cks — 'but the girls fight,'" casting director Doron Ofir later told Vulture.

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Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi showed up to her audition drunk.

One of the reasons Nicole Polizzi, affectionately known as Snooki, made such an impression is probably because she was drunk at her audition.

In an interview with Vulture, Polizzi said, "I went there drunk, because it was at a bar, and the rest is history."

Ofir said, "Nicole showed up in a miniskirt and she literally did cartwheels and flips. She was extraordinary. Her application was smudged with fingerprints from her bronzer to the point that I was like, 'What happened to her application? What spilled on it?'"

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The cast worked for free during season one.

Although the "Jersey Shore" cast ended up making a lot of money off of the show, the first season was a tough one, financially.

Vinny Guadagnino told Vulture that they did the first season for "zero dollars," except for their wages from the Shore Store. According to the New York Daily News, they got a pay raise for season two: $10,000 per episode.

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The final eight cast members got one day of notice before filming.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the final eight eight cast members (Angelina Pivarnick was in that group rather than Deena Cortese), were told they would be on the show only one day before shooting began.

That explains why Pivarnick brought her stuff in trash bags rather than luggage, something that cast regularly made fun of her for (her nickname was literally "Trash Bag").

She told Vulture, "They didn't really give me too much notice that I was going, so I was like, 'Oh, crap. What am I gonna put my stuff in?' I literally just took my stuff and threw all of it in garbage bags. I drove down to Seaside and I walked in the house with garbage bags. I'll never live that one down, but hey."

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The rooftop jacuzzi didn't exist.

Well, it did exist, it just didn't exist in the "Jersey Shore" house.

According to BuzzFeed, the jacuzzi was on the rooftop of the T-shirt shop and not their house. Editing made it seem different.

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The duck phone was not supposed to be there.

If you watch "Jersey Shore," you know about the iconic duck phone — but, as it turns out, it wasn't even supposed to be on the show.

Executive producer SallyAnn Salsano told Vulture, "Our art director went out and goes, 'I saw this duck phone. It's so ridiculous.'I said, 'We cannot leave that in the house. It doesn't make sense.' Then the show started and I'm like, 'Oh my God, we left that duck phone in there. Now the duck phone is the national symbol of 'Jersey Shore.'"

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The cast wasn't allowed to have cell phones or make personal calls.

Polizzi once told V Magazine that filming was "like being in jail for two months." The cast had to follow a strict policy that didn't allow them to have cell phones or make personal phone calls.

They were allowed one phone call per week. The producers wanted all conversations to be public and the cast wasn't even allowed to write notes to each other.

They also weren't allowed to read, listen to music, or watch TV.

In the V Magazine interview, Polizzi also said that they weren't allowed to read or watch television — they were completely cut off from the world around them.

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There was an STD clause in their contracts.

According to The Daily Mail, the producers encouraged cast members to sleep with each other and other people, but they made sure to keep themselves safe.

The contracts the cast signed reportedly made it clear that the network was not responsible for anything that happened after hooking up, specifically things like contracting STDs.

The contract reportedly stated that any STD that might be contracted was not their responsibility and the network could not be blamed or sued for anything to do with them.

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Guests were carded before going into the house.

There were other examples of MTV covering all of their bases: like any house guests getting carded before walking in.

Salsano told Vulture, "People are literally given a field sobriety test to get into the house. We have the same carding system they have at that club — that electronic thing where they run your ID — because we don't let anybody in the house that's not 21. Also, if someone is that inebriated, we'd ask people to leave."

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The cast took long showers for privacy.

Polizzi told V Magazine that producers were always around and that they had to tell them an hour before they wanted to go anywhere.

Salsano told Vulture that there were 42 cameras inside the house, the Shore Store, and on the boardwalk and that they "literally wired the entire town."

Salsano lived in the houses in Miami and Italy, watching the cast's every move in a control room. She had a 14-camera feed in her living room and bedroom to always keep an eye on what was going on.

Pauly DelVecchio told Vulture, "The only time you're off-camera is when you're in the bathroom. Even if you're in the bathroom with somebody else, they say two is a party, so they film it. We took long showers to get away from cameras."

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Most of what happened in Italy was reportedly scripted, according to extras.

During season four, the cast headed off to film in Italy. Apparently, a lot of what happened was not actually reality.

One extra told The Daily Beast that "everything that happens here is completely scripted." The fight between DelVecchio and Guadagnino was reportedly staged outside, under a street lamp for the perfect lighting.

When Polizzi got in a car accident with a police car, she reportedly had actually hit one of the members of the security team. One police source in Florence said it didn't seem accidental at all.

The Daily Beast also reported that MTV had rented out the pizza place the cast worked at during the season and that all of the customers were extras.

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Security teams were always around, even if they weren't seen on camera.

As the show became more popular, more security was needed. Security teams were brought in to protect the cast in public because swarms of people were everywhere.

Police had to put up barricades around the house to keep people from going inside, and fans waited outside of it for hours.

At the Shore Shop, people would line up for hours to get in. Salsano said that during season three, they had 1,000 to 3,000 people following them everywhere.

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The cast didn't know season five was going to happen.

While the cast was filming season four in Italy, Salsano green lit a fifth season — without telling any of them. She withheld the information until MTV publicly announced it in a press release because she knew they wouldn't like it.

It meant that the cast wouldn't get a rest period between season four and five, and would have to start shooting as soon as they got back to America. She told The Hollywood Reporter, "They're gonna hate me."