‘Jersey Shore’: Deena Cortese Tries to Explain Roasting Angelina Pivarnick at Her Wedding After Backlash

Deena Nicole Cortese addressed her controversial “roast” of Angelina Pivarnick at her wedding this week after an avalanche of fan backlash. Cortese is facing a lot of outrage for her speech at Pivarnick’s wedding on Wednesday, which included some harsh jokes at her Jersey Shore co-star’s expense. However, she thinks fans will understand when they see the whole thing in context.

Pivarnick married Chris Larangeira on Wednesday, and Cortese gave a bridesmaid speech along with Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and Jenni “JWoww” Farley. According to a report by Entertainment Tonight, it went over poorly with both the other guests and Pivarnick herself.

Fans have been leveling criticism at Cortese on social media ever since, saying that she was insensitive to go after her co-star so harshly, especially on Pivarnick’s big day. On Saturday morning, Cortese posted a now-deleted screenshot of one of the direct messages she had received on Instagram.

“How could you treat Angelina like that on her special day [you’re a] sorry ass friend,” the fan wrote. “I feel sorry for son to be raised by a s—ty heartless piece of s— by you. You three b—es deserve the worst and karma is a b— And it will come back. I really can’t believe you were part of that I always thought of you in higher regard [than] that. Snookie and JWoww once you got older but I guess [you’re] just sorry and shallow too.”

Cortese posted her public response to this, and all other backlash in the caption, explaining herself as best she could before deleting the post a short while later.

“Listen I understand [you’re] all upset about our speech but we also included nice things in it as well… We thought since Angelina always says ‘I never take myself seriously’ she would truly laugh at the stuff we said,” she wrote. Clearly we were wrong… We’re friggen human.”

Cortese acknowledged the speech as a “mistake,” but felt that it was not nearly as bad as the messages targeting her young son. She wrote: “But wishing bad on my son… How are you any better?”

According to Cortese, there was a lot of love between the bridesmaids in preparation for Cortese’s wedding. She wrote that they “actually did a lot of filming with Angelina,” suggesting that fans may perceive the whole thing differently when it plays out on reality TV in a few months.

“I’m not a mean person and our intentions were never negative,” she continued. “Yes we had a ‘roast part’ which yes I understand no one agrees with but chris’ one brother brought up his period s— tattoo… So why is us making jokes during a speech a problem… We truly thought she was going to laugh and right after we went into how lucky we are to have her in our lives and she’s the sister we needed in the house.”

Cortese ended by reiterating that she would not tolerate slander against her son, which was rampant in the response to this week’s story.

“I was truly going to stay [quiet] but when people continue to come after my 10-month-old son… I’m done,” she finished.

Jersey Shore: Family Vacation Season 4 is coming in 2020.