Jenni “JWoww” Farley knows that fiancé Zack Carpinello is The One, but she’s still nervous about setting a wedding date.
“We got engaged during COVID and, coming from someone that’s been divorced and failed at this once, I don’t want to fail again,” Farley, 37, said during the Thursday, February 15, episode of “The Viall Files” podcast. “So, I’m like really, I don’t know. I know for a fact, and I say with all my heart, he’s my one. This guy is so incredible for me, but when it comes to marriage and making it like a government thing, it just makes me apprehensive to set a date.”
She continued, “And then I look at Goldie Hawn [and Kurt Russell] and I’m like, ‘They did it right.’”
The Jersey Shore star was previously married to Roger Mathews from 2015 to 2019. They share daughter Meilani, 9, and son Grayson, 8.
Following her divorce, Farley moved on with Carpinello, now 29, in March 2019. They briefly broke up that October but reconciled in December 2019.
“He’s been in [New] Jersey. He had the option to renew his lease [at the] end of year or not, and I said, ‘I don’t think you should,’” she told host Nick Viall. “And then we crash-coursed … and then COVID hit, so, it was like Married at First Sight basically.”
Farley had actually known Carpinello, a professional wrestler, since they were children.
“I grew up with his sister, but he’s 10 years younger than me, so he was like my best friend growing up’s little brother that I did not see like that at all,” she told Viall, 43. “[They have] different moms, but I knew of him.”
Carpinello eventually relocated to Orlando, platonically meeting up with Farley and Meilani when they took a mother-daughter trip to Disney World.
“I literally called my best friend, like, ‘I’m so bored, my friends aren’t flying in until the day after. It’s my birthday, I don’t want to celebrate my birthday alone. Will your brother come to dinner with me in EPCOT?’ And I knew someone at the WWE at the time, so I was like, I’ll invite her, I’ll invite him. I felt like I was doing PR,” the MTV star recalled. “She happens to cancel last minute … and he came. He had to buy a full ticket just to walk in. … We had salmon hibachi together with my daughter, and we were just shooting the s—t. I was like, it was really good to see you grown [and] live on your own in Orlando.”
Farley returned to Florida one month later and they “totally went on a date that time.” She noted to Viall, “I was like, ‘Cool, how do we make this work? You’re in Florida and I’m in New Jersey?’ And we just figured it out.”
Carpinello proposed in March 2021 and Farley is now dreaming of a “small” destination wedding in Italy.
