New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi ran into each other on the boardwalk yesterday, and the long-awaited meet was about as awkward as you might expect.
The chilly encounter happened by accident while both Christie and Snooki were shooting separate segments on the boardwalk for TODAY , with Snooki spotting Christie backstage and choosing to finally confront the popular Jersey Gov.
Though Christie and Snooki are cordial to each other, there is an unmistakable pall of awkwardness preventing a meaningful dialogue from happening. Clearly, Snooki is still upset by negative comments Christie made about the popular MTV show years ago when it first started airing.
Fellow Shore alum Deena Cortese does compliment Christie for how he handled Hurricane Sandy, and JWoww stays politely silent, but Snooki burns Christie with some stink-eye before they all shake hands, exchange platitudes, and walk away.
“I just wanted to meet you, and just, hope you start to like us,” Snooki says to Christie.
“We’ll do our best,” chuckles Christie.
The animosity between Chris Christie and the cast of Jersey Shore goes way back to February 2010 , when he said that the show was “negative for New Jersey.” He also criticized it as a poor portrayal of Shore culture because most of the cast are actually from New York.
He said that the show “takes a bunch of New Yorkers and drops them at the Jersey Shore and tries to make America feel like this is the real New Jersey,” continuing, “I can tell people: They want to know what New Jersey really is? I welcome them to come to New Jersey any time.”
After the awkward meet , a Snooki rep told E! News that “Nicole simply wanted to know once and for all why Gov. Christie dislikes the cast of Jersey Shore . The show brought the beloved summer destination a significant amount of revenue during its 6 seasons on MTV. Nicole loves, respects and admires her adopted state of NJ which she now resides in with her family.”
You can watch the video of Chris Christie meeting Snooki below, and let us know what you think. Will these two ever get along?
