Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola’s entry into the Miami beach house on Jersey Shore: Family Vacation was unexpected for many viewers, but perhaps no more than for former boyfriend Ronnie Ortiz-Magro.
The original Jersey Shore ran for only three years, from 2009 to 2012. When the spin-off Family Vacation was commissioned in 2018, the original cast returned – with the exception of Giancola. This was assumed to be in large part due to her break-up with Ronnie.
When asked about her absence from the revival series, Giancola explained that she was “at a completely different place in my life right now, focusing on my business and my relationship”, according to InTouch Weekly.
According to People, Giancola said that “I am not the same as I was when I was 22. At 31, I am currently extremely happy in every aspect of my life and want to avoid potentially toxic situations”, likely referring to her relationship with Ronnie. The couple frequently broke up and made up multiple times across the show’s six-season span, and their often-explosive fights made for some of the most memorable scenes in the series.
When did Sammi and Ronnie finally call it quits?
Sammi and Ronnie split up around August 2014 – two years after Jersey Shore’s original run ended. “We were drifting apart and not really spending any time together”, Oritz-Magro confirmed to People. “I still care about her,” he added, explaining that “She’s a great girl, but we were growing distant. It was for the best.”
Now, it appears that Oritz-Magro is single, having broken up with former fiancé Saffire Matos in 2022. He has one daughter, born in 2018, from a previous relationship. As for Giancola, she is in a relationship with Justin May, a fellow New Jersey native, although various publications have speculated that they may have broken up. As of this writing, it remains unconfirmed.