Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi announced that she has been diagnosed with Stage 1 cervical cancer.
The 38-year-old reality star shared her diagnosis in a TikTok video after a doctor’s appointment, where she received the results of her cone biopsy, a surgical procedure that involves removing a cone-shaped piece of tissue from the cervix to diagnose or treat precancerous cells.
“It came back Stage 1 cervical cancer called adenocarcinoma. Obviously not the news that I was hoping for,” she said while sitting in her car between medical appointments. “But also not the worst news, just because they caught it so early, thank freaking God.”
Snooki urged her fans to get Pap smears and said that she is likely going to have a hysterectomy after her initial treatment. A hysterectomy is a surgical procedure to remove the uterus that is usually performed to treat chronic pain, fibroids or cancer.
“I’m 38 years old and I’ve been struggling with abnormal Pap smears for three or four years now, and now look at me,” she continued. “Instead of putting it off because I didn’t want to go, because I was hurt and scared, I just went and did it. And it was there, cancer is in there, but it’s Stage 1, and it’s curable.”
The mom of three said that following the cone biopsy, doctors “took out what was, like, the tumour, the cancer that was in there, but then around it was clear.”
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“So there were no cancer cells on that, which means it didn’t go up into the cervix, which is a good thing,” she shared, while noting that there is still a chance the cancer could spread in her body.
Snooki said her next steps will include a PET scan, which uses “a radioactive drug called a tracer to show both typical and atypical metabolic activity and can often detect diseases before the disease shows up on other imaging tests,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
“Obviously, I think the smart choice here is the hysterectomy. I’ll still keep my ovaries, which is a good sign,” she said. “But yeah, gotta get the cervix and uterus out … It all depends on the PET scan.”
Snooki said that 2026 isn’t “panning out how I wanted it to.”
“But also, it could be worse. So even though it’s not the news that I wanted to get, I still have to do further things to get rid of this,” she said. “I just feel like it’s very common in women.”
Snooki became one of the breakout stars of Jersey Shore from its debut on MTV in 2009. She was on the reality show for six seasons and appeared in the later spinoffs Snooki & JWoww and Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.
Her Jersey Shore castmate Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino sent her a message amid her recent cancer diagnosis.
“Sending prayers full of love, promotion and healing to our girl @Snooki,” he wrote on X on Sunday.
Snooki shared a separate TikTok video on Sunday, thanking her followers for all the love and support she has received since she shared her diagnosis.
“Seeing all the love you guys have shown me means THE WORLD to me,” she captioned the post, “thanks for being my besties 4ever.”
Cancer continues to impact a larger number of people in Canada each year, a trend largely driven by the growing and aging population, according to a 2025 report from the Canadian Cancer Society.
According to the organization, two in five Canadians are expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and approximately one in four are expected to die of the disease. The four most commonly diagnosed cancers include lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancers.
The incidence of cervical cancer in the country increased by an average of 3.7 per cent per year from 2015 to 2019, and is the fastest-increasing cancer among females, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.
Cervical cancer starts in the cells of the cervix. A cancerous (malignant) tumour is a group of cancer cells that can grow into nearby tissue and destroy it. The tumour can also spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body,” according to the organization.
Signs or symptoms of cervical cancer include abnormal vaginal bleeding, including between periods, unusually long or heavy periods, difficulty urinating and pain in the pelvic area or lower back that may go down one or both legs and more.
The Canadian Cancer Society estimated that 1,650 women in Canada will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2025 and an estimated 430 will die from it.
— With files from The Associated Press
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