‘Jersey Shore’ Cast Had Concerns About Ronnie Ortiz-Magro Rejoining Spinoff Amid Struggles

Ronnie Ortiz-Magro reportedly showed up inebriated to promotional events for the new season of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, including one when he was allegedly so wasted he had to be escorted off the red carpet, sparking new fears for his health.

The 40-year-old reality star, who’s long struggled with substance abuse, has reportedly been sober since taking a step back from the MTV hit in 2021 to seek treatment.

But recent incidents have people close to him wondering if he hasn’t relapsed.

On April 21 during a Q&A with the show’s entire cast at Sirius XM’s New York City studios, the Bronx-born musclehead appeared to nod off mid-interview, a video posted to X showed.

Then two days later, at a party for the Jersey Shore spinoff’s season 9 premiere at a Manhattan nightclub, the volatile star posed for photos with the rest of the cast, but then was escorted from the red carpet because he “was too messed up to do any interviews,” a source told The U.S. Sun.

Days later, he posted a cryptic message to Instagram Stories that seemed to describe his mental state. “High functioning depression is waking up each day with a face that works but a heart that doesn’t, doing everything you’re supposed to do while feeling nothing inside,” he wrote, via The Sun.

As fans of the show know, the recent troubling incidents are only the latest in a long-running saga of toxic drama involving Ronnie — who has clashed with castmates Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and ex-girlfriend Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola — since the original Jersey Shore premiered in 2009.

Ronnie has been busted twice for domestic violence, first in 2019 in a fight involving then-galpal Jen Harley (the mother of his daughter, Ariana), as People magazine reported, then two years later after an altercation with then-fiancée Saffire Matos. He received 36 months’ probation in the first case, and was sentenced to a year-long domestic violence program in the second, per Daily Mail.

Since those arrests, the well-tanned gym rat has claimed to be sober, which sources say helped pave the way for him to rejoin Family Vacation in 2023, despite reservations from his castmates.

“And who can blame them?” asks one insider. “They’re likely shell-shocked and traumatized from his temper, drinking and emotional instability. That’s why they’re assuredly so sensitive to what seems very much like him going down the tubes, again, in public.”