Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi and Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino Still Want to 'Be Authentic' With Fans as Cast Celebrates 15th Anniversary of 'Jersey Shore'

Jersey Shore first aired in 2009, and since then, the cast — Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, Jenni "JWoww" Farley, Vinny Guadagnino, Angelina Pivarnick, Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Samantha “Sammi Sweetheart” Giancola and Deena Nicole Cortese — have stayed close, even going on to appear in Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.

"I'm definitely grateful — doing the show in the first season, none of us knew it was going to turn out to be like this, and we're still doing it 15 years later. We're grateful for all the fans. We could do this forever," Polizzi, 37, exclusively told OK! ahead of the 15th anniversary of the MTV show first airing.

"I'm so proud of all the cast because if you look at everyone, Nicole is a business mogul, she's putting Snooki Shops around the country. We all have millions of followers, Vinny's back on the comedy stage, he's running marathons. Everyone is elevating," Sorrentino, 42, who is nine years sober, adds. "I just released a bestselling book, and now I'm opening up treatment centers around the country. There's so much story to tell and everyone's expanding their families. It's awesome."

When Sorrentino first walked into the "summer share" back in the day, he instantly knew it was going to be a good time. "I had tingles. I was like, 'What we just filmed I had never seen before.' It's special. I definitely manifested a lot of it," he shares.

Meanwhile, Polizzi, who shares three kids with husband Jionni LaValle, thought it was weird when no one was as "crazy" as she was.

"I was like, 'What is wrong with these people?'" she quips about meeting her cast members. "I feel like even if the show wasn't successful, we would still be all be friends to this day. It wasn't like, 'OK, see you guys, I'm never going to talk to you again' because we went through something crazy together.

"We went through a once in a lifetime experience, whether it was Season 1 or Season 2. We're now going on 15 years now. It's something only these eight people understand. We had our phones taken away and we would film for 30 or 60 days straight, so we definitely all relate to that experience," Sorrentino adds.

Now that the crew is back together to film Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, which follows the gang taking up residence in a swanky townhouse in Miami Beach, it feels like the good old days — except sometimes their families are around. "Back in the day, we were just thrown into a house and filmed 24/7, and we didn't really have a say," the businesswoman says. "We had our phones taken away, so now it's like we get to work with each other because we all want to be comfortable. We're parents now, so we can't do some things that we used to do back in the day. I definitely prefer this way of filming better because we're all working together to make a great show instead of just being thrown in the mix. It's more of a family unit now."

After years of being on the small screen and in the limelight, the book author, who shares three kids with wife Lauren Sorrentino, is all about being "relatable" with his fans. "We're being authentic in the moment, and we did that when we were younger and now we're parents and there are babies, baptisms, people are launching businesses," he explains. "People can relate to that — whether you've been watching us for years or for the first time."

Mike, who has been open about his addiction struggles, isn't shy about sharing what he's dealing with on purpose.

"It's my standard operating procedure that whatever I'm going through in life, I want to be authentic," the dad-of-three states. "I think that's what makes us so successful and relatable, and I think most cast members follow suit in that same theme as well. When you help someone else, you help yourself, and us being on for so many years, we are continuing to tell our story."

This time around, the cast gets to tell their own story when they want to. "There's a lot of personal things that are sometimes hard for us to share," Nicole notes. "Production is great with that. We can film it on our iPhones and then they can put it in the show that way so we feel comfortable and in our own space. Sometimes with having four big cameras in your face, it doesn't feel personal. With Sammi's IVF journey, she wasn't comfortable with the big cameras, so she did it herself but then started to get comfortable after she told us everything. There's ways we can do it, even if we are uncomfortable, but we love the outcome of it."

When Mike and Lauren previously revealed they had a miscarriage in 2019, they were hesitant to share details with the audience, but after having conversations with production, they felt more at ease. "They were like, 'If this doesn't work out, we'll take it out, or if you want to leave it in, we can.' We have that relationship with our production team," Mike says.

Ultimately, agreeing to be part of the MTV show, which aired from 2009 to 2012, has been a wild ride.

"I'm definitely proud of all of us because back in the day we were young, dumb and living out our college years on camera for everyone to see," the mom-of-three says. "Now we're all parents and married, and we're all successful. I'm really proud of us because if you watched the first two seasons, you would think we ended up in a gutter somewhere, but we actually turned out pretty great!"

"America has seen at us every stage in our life, and that's pretty cool," Mike adds. "I think we've all learned that our life story can be someone's survival guide — whether it's my addiction story or Sammi's IVF journey or Snooki's journey when it comes to finding her birth parents, I'm so proud of all of us. It's so amazing we're talking about our 15th year anniversary. There's so much story to tell. We're so happy and proud right now, and we're thankful for the fans out there because without them, there wouldn't be us."