Gym, tan…leopard? Yes, we know that’s not the mantra emblazoned in the minds of Jersey Shore fans the world over. And, yet, it’s hard not to argue that those were the words Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi lived by during her early years in Seaside Heights.
Though raised in Marlboro, N.Y., the self-described meatball became known for embodying the trucker hats, hair poofs and general blinged-out, bedazzled excess that is practically synonymous with Jersey in the late ’00s, having never met a cheetah or leopard print she wouldn’t happily drape over her 4-foot-8 frame.
“I call it ‘my color,'” she told E! News in a recent phone interview of her beloved animal prints. “It’s still my go-to. I mean, I don’t rock it as much because I usually look homeless and I’m wearing like baggy clothes.”
Now busy parenting Lorenzo, 9, Giovanna, 7, and Angelo, 2, with husband of nearly seven years Jionni LaValle, the 33-year-old is more likely to be kicking it in her mom uniform of cozy leggings and oversized sweatshirts.