Jersey Shore star Jenni “JWoww” Farley made a rare red carpet appearance at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards Monday night. She was joined by her new boyfriend, Zack Clayton Carpinello and other members of the Jersey Shore cast. JWoww filed for divorce from Roger Mathews back in September 2018.
During a red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight, Carpinello called Farley “my queen.”
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“I love everything about this woman,” Carpinello, 24, added. “This is the strongest woman I know, in every way.”
“Aw, I’m gonna blush,” Farley, 33, joked. “I need a drink.”
Farley said their connection was “semi-instant” and called it “perfect timing.”
“He took me out on my birthday and we stayed in touch every day after,” she explained. “And actually, tomorrow is, like, six months since my birthday.”
Carpinello previously told ET he has “spent a lot of time” with Farley’s two children, Meilani, 5, and Greyson, 3.
“Greyson calls him ‘Baby,’ so he’s always like, ‘Hi, Baby!’ and Meilani’s always known him as [my friend] Erica’s brother, so that’s how I wanted to keep it with the kids, so it’s not an awkward transition,” Farley explained. “So, they’ve just always known him as one of our really close friends.”
Farley and Carpinello, a wrestler, have known each other for several years, despite their age difference. They met through a mutual friend, Erica.
“She’s been one of my friends since I was 15, and I met her in the principal’s office because we both got in trouble,” Farley explained. “And cut to 20 years later, I’m now dating her brother, so it’s fun.”
Farley was not the only member of the Jersey Shore family at the VMAs. Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Deena Nicole Cortese and Angelina Pivarnick were all there, joined by Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino’s wife, Lauren Pesce.
Pivarnick’s fiance, Chris Larangeria, and Cortese’s husband Christopher Buckner were also on the red carpet.
Farley filed for divorce from Mathews in September 2018, citing “irreconcilable differences.” At first, she tried not to talk about the split during the new season of Jersey Shore Family Vacation, Farley opened up about the “ultimate betrayal” in last week’s episode.
“I thought silence was the greater good,” Farley said in a conversation with Polizzi, “It is, for your kids. And who wants this s— out in the public, anyway? I guess he does.”
Farley added, “As bad as our relationship got, I stayed f—ing quiet, because that’s what you’re supposed to do… So to me, the ultimate betrayal is the fact that he went public.”
Farley called Mathews’ social media videos a “really, really low blow.” Later, Polizzi defended her friend, whom Mathews accused of keeping the children from him.
“Everyone was attacking Jenni for keeping the kids away from Roger, when that’s not even the truth,” Polizzi said in the episode. “Little does anybody know, Jenni let Roger stay in the house after she filed for divorce so he could still be with the kids. But he would start fights in front of the children. So finally, enough is enough, she called the cops and said, ‘You’ve got to get out.’ But she never said Roger can’t see his kids.”
Jersey Shore Family Vacation airs Thursdays on MTV at 8 p.m. ET.
Photo credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for MTV
