Jenni ‘JWoww’ Farley Reveals ‘Iconic’ Unaired Moments, Talks 2000s Fashion Resurgence as ‘Jersey Shore’ Turns 15 (Exclusive)

It’s been 15 years since Jersey Shore fist-pumped its way into America’s hearts on Dec. 3, 2009, and there are still iconic moments to be uncovered. More than a decade after she walked into the Shore House for the first time, Jenni “JWOWW” Farley opened up to PopCulture.com about the ongoing legacy of Jersey Shore while looking back on some unaired moments.

Reflecting on all of the Karma nights and GTL days, Farley still can’t believe it’s been 15 years of antics with her roommates Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio, Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino, Vinny Guadagnino, Deena Nicole Cortese, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, and Angelina Pivarnick.

“I feel like this is what a lot of millennials are going through right now,” Farley, 39, told PopCulture. “I’m turning 40, but I also feel like a teenager. Like, I don’t know how I’m an adult and how I’ve been in this profession for 15 years because I don’t feel like it at all.”

As a senior in college, Farley said she expected the first season of Jersey Shore to be one summer of fun before she moved on. If she had known just how iconic the show would go on to be, running for six original seasons before returning for Jersey Shore: Family Vacation in 2018, Farley joked she “would have looked a lot different” and “showered more” on that first season.

Watching the Jersey Shore style and slang spread around the world was particularly unexpected. “I think the weirdest part about it is becoming known and famous for who you are,” Farley told PopCulture. “We’re not playing a character. I’m not a singer. I’m not a performer. It’s just me.”

She added, “So to see people in [the] Midwest on and all over the world buying Ed Hardy and flashy shirts and blinged-out jeans and wearing their hair in a pouf like that was just so like – are you making fun of me or do you actually like my style? … It’s just so gratifying to know that people loved us for just being us.”

With the recent resurgence of 2000s-era fashion, Farley revealed her two kids, 10-year-old Meilani and 8-year-old Greyson, are even starting to get into the styles she rocked in her 20s. “I even just hit up Pauly the other day because I saw him in what looked to be an Ed Hardy hoodie. And I was like, ‘What is happening? Like, is this back?’” she joked. “Now I’m at the age where I’m completely out of the loop of what’s cool, so I’m like … can I whip out my bins of old Jersey Shore clothes?”

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of Jersey Shore, Farley also opened up to PopCulture about some previously unaired moments from the original run, revealing there were “some iconic fights and fights that we didn’t start in the club” that production chose not to show. “But some of those fights were so iconic, I would die if they would show them today,” she gushed. “That’s like my one wish for Christmas. Like please show all of the just mayhem that people didn’t get to see that went on every day.”

She also revealed a moment in which paparazzi approached them during the filming of Season 2 to ask the cast about being mentioned by President Barack Obama while discussing a tax on tanning. Farley revealed that because “production was excellent at keeping us very humble and very much real,” no one had heard their show had made it to the White House.

“Even though it was negative, it was the most iconic thing ever,” she recalled. “And I remember walking with a few roommates and paparazzi yelled to us, ‘Did you know Obama said your name on television and in a speech?’ And we were all like, ‘Wait, what?’ And production’s yelling at them like, ‘No, don’t say that! Don’t let them know that they’re as cool as they are!’”

She gushed, “We were freaking— I’m obsessed with Obama. So I was like, ‘This is the coolest moment of my life.’ And we’ll never air it. But that was my [moment] like, ‘Am I really that cool? Is our show so popular that a president mentioned us in a speech?’ To this day, I still get goosebumps about it.”

As for the future of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, currently airing its seventh season, Farley said that she would definitely be down for another 15 years of Shore antics, but quipped, “I might need a few organ transplants, but for sure.”

Jersey Shore: Family Vacation airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.