Vinny Guadagnino is opening up about his mental health journey.
On a recent episode of the Click Bait podcast, the Jersey Shore star recalled struggling with anxiety while filming the hit reality show. During the episode, the reality star opened up about his battles with anxiety while filming the iconic show back in the 2000s.
"I had anxiety on TV, before it was cool, okay? I had anxiety on TV before it was, like, a thing," the star laughed. "I used to scream out that I was having anxiety and everyone would kind of look at me funny, 'Like what's wrong with this kid?' But now it's a lot more awareness behind it and a lot of people are talking about it."
The 33-year-old further explained that fans who watched the MTV series growing up are now revisiting it as adults. As he noted, "People are like, ‘Oh s--t, I get it now.' Someone tweeted the other day, like, ‘I totally watched that differently when I was a teenager.' And you're watching Jersey Shore just for the partying aspect of it to watching now as an adult and being like, ‘I get the going through some stuff.'"
Vinny went on to describe his struggle with anxiety, which started at a young age.
"Basically, I have a brain that—I'm an overthinker and I've had it since I was a little kid," he explained. "And as you guys know, being on a reality show, it's someone with anxiety's worst nightmare if you're locked up, you can't read a book, you can't turn on a TV. Back in the day, we were totally guerilla style. We were totally closed off from the world. For the most part, I did pretty good at it, but sometimes—at that particular time when we were filming, we had filmed for three months straight—my body and my brain just couldn't take it anymore."