Let’s Remember Some Gossip is a new series in which we revisit the juiciest gossip of yesteryear, with the celebrities who simply cannot forget it.
When asked to name the best bit of tabloid gossip she’s ever heard about herself, Nicole Polizzi, best known for her carousing days as Snooki on MTV’s reality TV show experiment Jersey Shore, laughs. “I feel like there’s nothing really fun or juicy, because half the stuff was true. It was like, ‘Oh, Snooki’s blacking out!,’ or ‘Oh, TMZ got her falling, dancing with a plant,’” she told Jezebel over the phone. “So I feel like there was never a crazy rumor about me, like I was dating Leonardo DiCaprio or anything... If I had beef with someone, it was like someone from high school. It was never anything cool, like I was beefing with Beyoncé.”
After a quick perusal of Page Six archives in 2010, the year after Jersey Shore premiered, I beg to differ. In one article, she’s accused of beefing with Jerry Springer, refusing to meet the TV host because “I am way classier than that. We are not The Hills.” “Really?” she exclaims after I read her the quote. “I don’t ever remember getting invited to his show. If I were, I would definitely go because I loved watching Jerry Springer everyday after school. Never had a problem with Jerry Springer.”
In another, it was rumored that she and Drake were flirting backstage at the MuchMusic Video Awards in his native Toronto, and she was later turned away at his after-party. “I remember meeting him and he was super, super nice to all of us. He took pictures with all of us. I don’t think it was everything special,” she explained. “He just said he was a huge fan of all of us. So, that’s definitely just a rumor. I wish I could say Drake flirted with me, but... it was more like, ‘Love the show, guys!’ And we were like, ‘Aw, thanks!’”
And in the most early 2010s story I’ve ever heard, Polizzi offered this brief memory about partying with Lindsay Lohan... while she was on house arrest:
“We were—this was when the show just came out—Lindsay Lohan was on house arrest, and she had the ankle bracelet on and was like, “love you.” We ended up seeing her at the club with her ankle bracelet on. And we were partying with her. That was weird. I don’t even know if she was supposed to be out.”
Though I don’t doubt that this interaction took place, it’s actually the hardest bit of gossip to pin down. In July 2010, Snooki was dubbed “a Lindsay Lohan wannabe,” by a judge in New Jersey, fined $500, and ordered to do community service after pleading guilty to disturbing others on the Seaside Heights beach, according to CBS—but at that time, it was unclear whether or not the pair had partied together. (Both celebrities, it should be stated, were well-known party animals and notorious drink-throwers.) According to the Hollywood Reporter, Lohan began serving her aforementioned house arrest in May 2011, after pleading no contest to stealing a $2,500 necklace. She was released 35 days later and allowed to remove her electronic ankle bracelet. Could Snooki and Lohan have partied together during that brief time?
It’s much more likely that the pair crossed paths a year earlier, when Lohan was ordered to wear a SCRAM bracelet around her ankle—an alcohol-monitoring device, not a house arrest anklet—and submit to regular drug tests. But unless photographs of the night in question pop up in some nostalgic tabloid later this year, the mystery continues. And isn’t that the fun of goss!