Angelina Pivarnick isn’t throwing in the towel just yet.
During a virtual press junket for “Jersey Shore: Family Vacation” Season 5, the MTV star, 35, exclusively told Page Six that she is fighting to “save” her marriage to husband Chris Larangeira.
“I said to myself, ‘I am not going to get divorced. I am going to try everything that I can in my power to save my marriage, no matter what it is,” Pivarnick said.
The duo — who have known each other for more than a decade but only began dating in 2016 — eventually tied the knot in November 2019, which was filmed for the Season 3 finale of “Family Vacation.”
They redid their special day, however, during a February 2021 episode after their first ceremony was upended by a controversial speech made by bridesmaids and co-stars Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and Deena Cortese.
Since then, the couple’s union been plagued my a series of obstacles — including allegations of infidelity on both sides, a lack of intimacy and Larangeira’s decision to temporarily move out. Pivarnick even filed for divorce in January 2021, but the case was dismissed by September.
“It’s been very hard. Hard is just an understatement,” Pivarnick said, describing the struggle of navigating her marital woes in the public eye.
“The whole entire thing, since the day he moved out and came back in, it’s just been a whirlwind of craziness for both of us.”
The reality TV personality revealed that she gave Larangeira an ultimatum; he had to attend couples therapy or she’d call it quits for good.
“That was it for me. If he wasn’t going to go to therapy with me, I was done,” she recalled. “At first, he really didn’t want to go to therapy. It was like pulling teeth. Eventually, you’ll see this season that I was like, ‘Listen, if you don’t go with me, it’s done. It’s over.’ He realized, ‘I have to go.’”
When asked where she and the sanitation worker stand today, Pivarnick teased, “You’ll see what happens there. You’ll see if it worked out or not.”
The Staten Island native researched her options as she considered how to move forward (or not) with Larangeira.
As seen on Thursday’s premiere of the “Jersey Shore” reboot, Pivarnick looked over the terms of a marital settlement agreement and asked Farley, 35 — whose own divorce from Roger Mathews was finalized in 2019 — for help as she explored the process herself.
“I’m relatable in that sense. I can help her by holding her hand and guiding her,” Farley told us, adding that she was happy to accompany Pivarnick to a preliminary meeting with a divorce attorney.
“But ultimately, it’s her decision and we’re all going to be by her side with whatever decision she decides to make … At the time, she just really needed a friend, someone to really be there for her and to help her understand the process of going through a divorce.”
Pivarnick told Page Six that the residual pain of her parents’ divorce has influenced the decisions she’s made — both good and bad — throughout her marriage.
“Even though my parents were divorced when I was 11, that impacted my life so much that I still hold it. My therapist told me, ‘You have a backpack as you go through life. When you go through life, you put more and more stuff in that backpack and then you weigh yourself down,” she said.
Pivarnick noted that her load has recently become lighter thanks to solo therapy sessions.
“That has been very helpful to me. The fights [with Chris]? I would say to myself, ‘Oh, that’s normal.’ But I learned that it wasn’t normal. It was from things that happened in my childhood with my father and growing up with that kind of animosity in the home,” she elaborated.
“And going to therapy alone has really opened my eyes to so many things.”
“Jersey Shore: Family Vacation” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.