By james art “I don’t really talk about it because she’s still here and I don’t want to define her like that,” Jenni “JWoww” Farley says of her mother’s diagnosis
Jenny ‘JWoww’ Farley talks about her upbringing.
In an exclusive clip from the October 31 episode of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, JWoww sits down with Bunnie XO to talk about her tumultuous childhood, which she was initially hesitant to discuss.
“I don’t like to talk about my childhood,” she admits. “It’s weird. I’m literally close to 40 and I’m still embarrassed to talk about how I was raised. I haven’t even told my roommates.”
Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty
Jenny Farley at the People’s Choice Awards held at the Barker Hangar on February 18, 2024 in Santa Monica, California.
She says her parents were only 20 when she was born, and when she was only 2, her mother “became very ill with mental illness.” When Bunny asks if JWoww is comfortable saying more, JWoww decides to reveal the diagnosis. “Nobody knows, but I’m going to say it’s schizophrenia,” she replies.
“My mom was schizophrenic too,” Bunny chimes in, before JWoww asks if she’s talked about it publicly.
“Yeah, I talked about it a lot,” says Bunny.
“I don’t really talk about it because she’s still here and I don’t want to define her as such,” JWoww then explains. “But at 22, she was diagnosed with it.”
Related: Jersey Shore: Vinnie Reposts Sammy & Ronnie Meme, Causing Unease In The House (Exclusive)
JWoww then recalls what caused her mother’s illness to worsen years after her diagnosis.
“Around, I think it was my fourth or fifth birthday, my grandmother left my birthday party, a teenager hit the brakes and skidded on the ice and hit my grandmother’s car,” she shared. “My grandmother passed away.”
“It was my mother’s mother, and because my mother suffered so badly from mental illness, she just couldn’t do it anymore,” she adds.
“Oh, I just got the chills,” Bunny says, as JWoww continues, “My dad at like 25, 26 was like, well, you know, here we are.”
Other cast members of Jersey Shore also kick off this season, with Sammy “Honey” Giancola opening up about her years-long IVF journey for the first time.
“Everybody puts their personal stuff out there and I was just nervous about the whole thing, but I was like, ‘Okay, now I guess it’s my turn to just say what I’m really going through,'” she told PEOPLE in September.
“I just wanted to keep it a secret for a very long time, even though I know I’m being filmed,” she added. “Because I was just scared to be in front of them and, if it’s not what I thought, am I strong enough to be able to tell everybody that it’s not working — like my family, my friends, the cast members?”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling stories that matter to people.
Part 2 of Jersey Shore Family Vacation season 7 airs Thursdays at 8pm ET on MTV.