Jersey Shore’s Mike and Ronnie Celebrate 15 Years of Gym, Tan, Laundry

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and Ronnie Ortiz-Magro can’t believe how far the Jersey Shore family has come.

“It’s definitely hard to wrap your head around 15 years. But I think short and sweet, we’ve turned 15 minutes of fame into 15 years, and the story continues,” Mike, 43, exclusively shared with Us Weekly before the Thursday, September 11, season finale of MTV’s reality show. “We started out as a cast, and then we turned into friends, and now, we are truly family.”

When Jersey Shore premiered in December 2009, Mike, Ronnie, 39, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Angelina Pivarnick, DJ Pauly D, Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola and Vinny Guadagnino arrived in a New Jersey house as strangers.

Now, as another season of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation comes to an end, the cast — which now includes Deena Nicole Cortese — can’t help but first pump over their latest milestone.

“I feel like if we didn’t really do the show, we probably would have never even met,” Ronnie told Us. “I feel like all of our personalities are so strong that I think maybe we would have clashed in real life. But I think that us doing such a unique experience together and going through so many different things together … the stuff that we went through is what you really go through in life with your real family. That’s why we consider ourselves family.”

On Thursday’s season finale, the cast returns to the house that started it all. As they look back on some of the show’s biggest moments — including the infamous letter Snooki, 37, and JWoww, 40, wrote to Sammi, 38, about Ronnie — Mike and his costars can’t help but feel grateful.

“We all know that reality shows normally don’t last. They’re one season or two seasons. That’s really the truth,” he said. “Fifteen years speaks for itself. The staying power of Jersey Shore and this cast is just truly lightning in a bottle. JWoww is my neighbor. She’s my kid’s godmother. Pauly and Vinny and Ronnie were the best men at my wedding. Our children are friends. That right there is priceless.”

If you ask both Ronnie and Mike, they are more than willing to keep filming Jersey Shore as long as there are new stories to tell and fans are invested.

For Mike — who is approaching 10 years of sobriety and gearing up to open up his own treatment facility with Archangel Centers — he can’t help but wonder what Jersey Shore will look like in 15 years.

“I have three kids. … I believe there are a dozen children amongst us, which is a football team,” he joked. “I wouldn’t put it past anyone if our children got together because they’re all very similar ages. Oh my God. What a story that would be.”

Jersey Shore: Family Vacation airs on MTV Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.