Twelve years later, the show's cast and crew told Insider how it all went down — and why they think the letter is still so beloved.
MTV's no-holds-barred reality-TV show "Jersey Shore" was an instant sensation when the first season premiered in December 2009. The series followed a group of self-proclaimed hard-partying "guidos" and "guidettes" — Italian Americans, mostly from New York or New Jersey — as they spent a loud, messy summer together in a Jersey beach house.
With a cast of larger-than-life personalities (Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, Jenni "JWoww" Farley, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, and Paul "DJ Pauly D" DelVecchio were instant stars) and just the right amount of medium-stakes drama, the show was quickly renewed for a second season. And unlike the casts of other reality-TV shows around the same time (like "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach"), the "Jersey Shore" cast members were largely left to their own devices, with little to no producer involvement or scripted moments.
While there was no shortage of iconic moments throughout the original series' six-season run, one incident in season two has become the stuff of pop-culture legend: the infamous note to Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola about her boyfriend and fellow cast member Ronnie Ortiz-Magro's infidelity during nights out at clubs, written by Farley and Polizzi but presented anonymously.
"Sam," the letter, typed in all caps, begins, "the first night at BED when you left, Ron made out with 2 girls and put his head inbetween a cocktail waitresses breasts. Also was grinding with multiple fat women."
After detailing another alleged instance of infidelity, the note concludes: "Multiple people in the house know, therefore you should know the truth."
Twelve years after the episode, fittingly titled "The Letter," aired on MTV, Insider spoke with Sorrentino, Farley (via email), and Charlie Newton, a producer, about where things went wrong — and why they believe Farley and Polizzi's ill-fated letter is still so beloved by fans of pop culture and "Jersey Shore." (Giancola declined to be interviewed for this story, and Ortiz-Magro's representative didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.)
Going into season 2, things were already tense between Giancola and Ortiz-Magro
Season two of "Jersey Shore" was filmed in Miami, in the winter after the first episodes aired, and picked up where the first season left off.
Charlie Newton, a supervising story producer on "Jersey Shore" and later an executive producer: Three things were obvious when we started filming [season one].
One was that Nicole was a comic genius — and I mean that literally. She was absolutely hilarious just by herself in a room. That had not really come through in her casting — it was kind of a fluke; she was cast mostly because she was outrageous. So that came through, but her absolutely brilliant, frankly, comic timing was something that I don't think we all totally appreciated.
The other thing that was clear was that The Situation was an absolute star. He was really amazing right away. And then also we just knew it was going to be a hit. It was so exciting. It was really clear to everybody that this was lightning in a bottle.
Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino: I was always game for drama in the early seasons of "Jersey Shore," especially when it's not necessarily your own.
The tumultuous romance between Giancola and Ortiz-Magro featured heavily in the first few seasons of the show. And while the two began the second season broken up, they quickly rekindled their romance, with disastrous results.
Though he slept in Giancola's bed every night and seemed to be a devoted boyfriend, Ortiz-Magro was shown flirting and dancing with other women at clubs during nights out. In several instances he kissed them and got their phone numbers.
Giancola, who usually left outings earlier in the night, was none the wiser. But after learning of Ortiz-Magro's behavior from a housemate, Angelina Pivarnick, Farley and Polizzi took it upon themselves to let Giancola "know the truth" through an anonymous letter, so as not to endanger their friendship with Ortiz-Magro.
The two women headed to a cybercafe to type the letter. Their entire process — from deciding to use an elevated vernacular (writing "breasts" instead of "tits," for example) to disguise themselves to hiding the note in Giancola's drawer later that night — was captured on film.
Newton: The writing of the letter was really funny. Nicole's just a very funny person. So her sitting down and just writing the way she wrote it — it was all completely natural. None of this was produced in any way. This cast in particular, you really did not have to produce them. They just went with it.
Everything that you see happening, like the letter, was their idea.
Jenni "JWoww" Farley: Nicole and I decided to write an anonymous letter because we needed Sam to know the truth, but technically we were never there when Ronnie was cheating on her ... Angelina always was. We loved both Ron and Sam, but we had a sense of "girl code" that made us feel obligated to tell her the truth.
The letter led to several blowout fights in the house
While the letter was meant to inform Giancola of Ortiz-Magro's philandering behavior, it caused further tension among the housemates when Giancola found it the next morning.
Farley, Polizzi, and Sorrentino were working at a local gelato shop when Giancola found the note. After confronting DelVecchio, Vinny Guadagnino, and Ortiz-Magro over breakfast, Giancola called the shop to speak with Farley and Polizzi, who quickly denied any involvement in the note.
Sorrentino: My original reaction, I believe, was like, "Oh my God. I guess we're going there."
I think originally I didn't know who had written the note. And then I'm pretty sure when the note came around to me, I was like, "Whatever's on the note's true." I thought it was all out in the open.
Newton: They were feeling a very, very strong sense of girl code. They considered themselves her close friends. So they knew that they had to let her know somehow that Ronnie was doing stuff that they didn't think was appropriate. But they also felt a very strong loyalty towards Ron.
They were just caught between a rock and hard place. They didn't know what to do. It seems ridiculous, but they felt like this anonymous letter was a way of, like, satisfying both needs, of helping their friend Sam out, getting her the information she needs, but not betraying Ron's loyalty.
Sorrentino: I guess I stirred the sauce a little bit. I was like, "Yeah, I guess whatever's on the note is true." Also knowing that we're filming a TV show for entertainment, so you're not just going to sort of ruin everything, you know?
Newton: The idea that this was somehow a get-out-of-jail-free card — that you could write an anonymous note and that would be it — is obviously insane.
Despite Farley's and Polizzi's attempts to keep their involvement secret, it soon became clear to most people in the house that they were the masterminds.
Farley: We really didn't want Sam to find out it was us! We only agreed to tell her [about Ron's cheating] if we could do it anonymously. During "Jersey Shore," we were never allowed cellphones, pens, paper, computers, etc., so we were actually hoping that Sam would think it was production, since you're never allowed any of those things. And we wanted to change up the language so it didn't sound like either of us.
Newton: I suspect that everyone quickly knew that it was them. I'm just not sure that they fully appreciated why.
Sorrentino: Probably in the early seasons you could suspect that it could have been even someone from production, because when you're new in the business you don't know who's doing what. So I'm sure maybe that could have been in my brain as well — like, "Oh my God, maybe production wrote it and it was planted there."
Obviously now we know that it was Nicole and Jenni. [The language] did not throw me off. But in the beginning, I didn't know.
Newton: It was absolutely not produced or manufactured. It was truly organic. And I think that was the secret sauce of the show.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone was appreciative of Farley's and Polizzi's attempts to play peacemaker between Giancola and Ortiz-Magro. After finding the note, Giancola broke things off with Ortiz-Magro, then went head-to-head with Farley over the letter. The tension between the women eventually led to a physical altercation in the kitchen.
Farley: It obviously backfired and created the "note heard around the world," but that was never our intention. We love Sam and just felt she needed to hear the truth.
Sorrentino: I think it was a good idea to write the note. I guess they didn't want to confront her, to a certain extent, so they wrote an anonymous letter to try to help her out.
Newton: I've never said this before, and I don't know if it was ever really examined, but I believe that part of Sam's anger towards Jenni is that she thought Jenni was trying to break her and Ron up so that she could get with Ron.
It was definitely something that I was aware of in those early, early, early days. It's hard to remember that the cause of Ron's jealousy of Mike is because of his initial attraction to Sam. Even to this day I think there's tension between those two guys. And the origin story of that tension is that Mike got with Sam first [in season one].
So I think that's part of why Sam was so mad and why that whole thing leads to the girl fight in the kitchen. Sam had this other fear, but I believe that Jenni really believed that she was trying to help Sam, trying to let her know: "This guy is dogging you."
Despite the drama the letter caused, it's become something of a pop-culture artifact, spawning memes and merchandise
The fallout from the note altered the dynamic between the housemates permanently. And the relationship between Giancola and the rest of the group soured to such an extent that she didn't return for the spinoff, "Jersey Shore: Family Vacation," which premiered in 2018, nearly six years after the first show ended, and follows seven of the original cast members.
Sorrentino: I'm kind of a big believer in everything happens for a reason, as long as you learn from it. I think we've learned from those earlier seasons.
I don't really think I would take anything back, even though obviously you saw a ton of questionable behavior. I believe those wild times have shaped me into the mature, sober, loving dad that I am today.
Farley: Hindsight doesn't make for good reality TV. If I changed anything from the past, we would never have the note that we have today.
Newton: For good and for bad, you've gotten to see a lot of the darkest sides of these people's lives, mostly because it hasn't been produced out of them.
—rich uncle p (@mateskrilla) January 19, 2020
Sorrentino, Farley, and Newton were split on whether a similarly iconic letter-writing moment could happen on a reality-TV show today.
Farley: When "Jersey Shore" came out, it was before all these social-media platforms. I guess now the closest version would be a Snapchat of someone's boyfriend motorboating another woman?
Newton: The idea of a letter is so strangely dated. To type the thing and have it printed at a cybercafe, which is also just, like, a weird vestige of European travelers in the United States in the 2000s ... Do they even exist anymore?
It's hard to say — could it have happened on a different reality show at the time? Maybe, but I'm also not sure. This show was a little bit realer and grittier than most shows were allowed to be in those days. You've got to remember that the big hit shows at the time were "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach," which were very slick, heavily produced, practically scripted shows, and nothing happened that wasn't thought out by the producers, whereas this show was literally like, we're just going to turn on the cameras and let them go.
So these weird ideas, like the letter — I just can't imagine that would've happened on a different show. Not so much because of the time but because of the style of shooting.
But neither Farley nor Sorrentino was surprised that the note has remained relevant.
Farley: Even on "Jersey Shore: Family Vacation," the cast jokes about the note, and some try to one-up it ... but it can never be dethroned.
Sorrentino: It's all over college campuses, and I see it so much — it's such a big part of our culture. We constantly get tagged in memes, and we definitely relive it in our group chat. Sometimes somebody will rewrite the note to apply it to what's happening in the world.
Everybody takes turns. Out of nowhere you'll just see in the group chat, like, "Dear Sam..." Maybe Vinny will rewrite it and apply it to some of the things we might be going through this season or this year, and he'll write it in a very similar format to the other note. It's hilarious.
Everyone agreed that, for better or for worse, the letter remains an integral part of "Jersey Shore" and pop-culture history.
Sorrentino: It was really us just being us.
Newton: You can relate to being stuck between two friends and not knowing what to do and how to deal with it. And you can relate to coming up with some cockamamie plan to solve the problem that if you had the ability to step back 10 feet you can be like, no, this doesn't actually solve the problem.
We've all been in that situation, particularly when you're young and dumb. A lot of magic that we captured, we just lucked into, honestly.
But it's not entirely luck. The house was really wonderfully captured by the cameras that they had in all the corners. And we got it all. We got them planning. We got them typing the note. We got them placing the note. We got the moment when [Giancola] finds the note and goes, "What's this?"
You couldn't script it better. We got all the awkward interactions. We got all the guys being like, "What the fuck?" as they were each shown the letter.
And that is magic, you know? I think the reason that this is so iconic is because you can see every piece of it.