Imagine losing work because you can’t party like you used to. That’s just what’s happened to two of America’s best-known spring breakers.
Sources tell gossip website TMZ that Nicole “Snookie” Polizzi and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino will see their “Jersey Shore” roles cut back in light of Snookie’s pregnancy and The Situation’s entry into a drug rehabilitation facility for addiction to prescription medication.
Executives at 495 Productions, the company that owns the show, “are FREAKED the show will lose its sex-crazed alcohol-fueled edge” and worry that viewers of a show known for the drunken antics of its stars won’t tune in to a sober Situation and a pregnant Polizzi. TMZ reports that the producers are looking to expand the cast and bring in younger partiers while limiting the time that Snookie and The Situation will appear on the show.
Producers feel it’s important to keep Snookie and The Situation on the show to some extent to avoid alienating long-term fans of the show, but think that bringing in younger cast members could help bring in a younger generation of viewers.
Snookie announced on March 7 that she was pregnant, and The Situation checked into the Cirque Lodge in Utah several weeks ago.
MTV seemed to brush off the rumors in a statement released last week.
“While things will definitely be a little different this time when they hit the boardwalk, their trademark hilarity and family dysfunction will remain the same,” the network said in a statement.