Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino Threatened to Leave ‘Jersey Shore’ if He Didn’t Receive a Raise
Jersey Shore cast members made a lot of money off of the hit television series. Some cast members like Mike Sorrentino knew their worth early during the show’s run. So when the show wouldn’t pay Sorrentino what he felt he deserved, Sorrentino gave them an ultimatum.
Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino didn’t want to be underpaid for the ‘Jersey Shore’
Sorrentino and the rest of the Jersey Shore cast didn’t make too much money for the show at first. Speaking with Instyle (via People), Snooki revealed that she and the others were only paid $200 a week. But that was a lot of money for the star back then.
“I had never gotten that much in a week, like, every single week, because you usually get paid every two weeks. That was crazy for me,” Snooki said.
This would change in later seasons. Soon, the cast would meet executives to discuss a potential pay increase.
“The whole cast was in New York City and we were just on a high from Jersey Shore and the ratings of the first season,” Sorrentino once told ET. “We were all in a room and I guess the MTV lawyers or that representation handed out contracts and the contracts were the same from the year before and our contract from the year before was a couple thousand dollars for the season, for the whole season and we worked at the T-shirt shop.”
But Sorrentino was disappointed by the pay he was receiving.
“Once they handed me that contract, I just looked at it and I just knew something wasn’t right,” he continued. “I knew that we had created a TV show that was groundbreaking, It was new, it was fresh, and I didn’t think that it could be duplicated. They said, ‘Sign on the dotted line or we’re gonna replace you, and in that moment in my life, I felt, I don’t know, I felt like I knew my worth and I took the chance and I said, ‘Go ahead and try to replace me,’ and I walked out the room.”
The threat was enough to convince executives to agree to Sorrentino’s terms.
“Next thing you know it, a couple weeks later, we got like a million-dollar raise and that’s probably a big turning point in reality TV obviously for the kids getting paid that much and, just in general, just continuing the show that’s a cast-driven show that’s been on for about 15 years now,” he said.
But poor financial decisions Sorrentino made might’ve had a negative impact on his overall net worth later on.
Mike Sorrentino considered releasing a sex-tape if his funds ran low
Despite his Jersey Shore earnings, Sorrentino famously dealt with a lot of financial hardship. Because he didn’t pay his taxes, the reality star owed the IRS $2.3 million, and he had to spend some time in jail because of it. Sorrentino also had issues with substance abuse, and spent $500,000 to indulge his drug habits. This resulted in Sorrentino being admitted into rehab in 2015, which helped turn his life around.
At one point after his fame, Sorrentino considered using his insurance policy. Sorrentino filmed a sex tape that he was willing to release to the public for some extra cash.
“I was down on my luck, and I wanted to soften the fall, and there was that emergency sex tape. I had to tell my mother and Lauren, ‘I have to do this, it’s been here for years,'” Sorrentino said in another interview with ET.
The only reason the tape never saw the light of day was because the offers for it weren’t worth the risk.
“There was one. I think it’s been destroyed… the video wasn’t released [because] the offers weren’t good enough,” Sorrentino said. “They were a combo of revenue from the sales or streams. It wasn’t as big of an upfront payment as I wanted. It wasn’t Jersey Shore money, so I wasn’t going to put myself out there like that.”
