Jerseyliciousâ biggest stars, Tracy and Olivia introduce us to the latest US hit show based in, yes, you’ve guessed it, New Jersey. A âdocu-soapâ? â think, Made in Chelsea, or The only Way Is Essex â set in a salon owned and run by Italian-American stereotypes, so as you may imagine, thereâs plenty of fighting, bitching and blow-outs.
Jerseylicious, airs on Wednesdays at 9pm only on Style (Sky: 253)
For people who havenât seen it before could you explain what itâs about?
Itâs about a salon in New Jersey and it stars a bunch of different people and we all have very strong personalities, weâre all very strong people. We donât take crap from anyone and it can cause a lot of friction and fights. Weâre very confident and we dress very over the top and weâre confident in who we are, so itâs just a fun show to watch because you never really know whatâs gonna happen because weâre all just so nutty.
We have a show over here called The Only Way Is Essex…
Yeah, weâve seen that, itâs funny.
Some of itâs real and some of itâs scripted, is your show similar in that respect?
Ours is real, I didnât think that theirs seemed scripted or not scripted, Iâm like really naive, I think everythingâs real. But I think that our show is like, weâre like really up front people and I think we tell it like it is and I think thatâs why people like our show because weâre so brutally honest, and thatâs kind of like where the fights come in because we just donât hold back.
You two had a big fight in one of the recent episodes, looking back how do you feel about it now?
It was just an uncalled-for fight, it shouldnât have happened and hopefully it never gets to that point again. Weâre like growing up on TV and itâs hard because every move we make is like being judged and everything that we do and like all the situations that we get shoved into are being videoed and if things end up in things like drama, theyâre gonna use it. So I think that itâs hard when youâre in the reality spotlight because you canât do anything wrong or you get ridiculed for it.
Is there any rivalry between you two girls and Lorenzo?
No, thatâs so over.
Do you ever watch the show yourselves?
I watched the show once and I never watched again because I watched it to see what they used and see what happened, you know, just seeing how you looked and how things turned out, and I only watched it once. I feel awkward when Iâm watching it, itâs strange.
Whatâs the worst disaster youâve ever had in the salon?
We have some pretty crazy clients who are fans of the show and will come into the salon and that are borderline stalker-ish. We have really great clients that have been coming to us forever and those people are great, but then after the show people get a little crazy and there are moments when you feel like you need security or something. People just kind of show up on you and freak you out because you just donât realise how they realise where you are all the time.
When the show first started how did your clients take to being shown on film?
Our actual clients, some of them, a lot of them mostly, donât want to be videotaped and they donât want to be on camera, so when weâre filming we have to make sure that people are okay to filming. So, sometimes we have to shoot the show on days when the salon would normally be closed, because we canât let the two worlds collide because everyone would start getting freaked out by the cameras. We donât want to lose our clients that weâve had, you know? Like?
Are the boys still keeping up with beauty school?
Yeah, Lorenzo actually more so than Fili because Fili has to run the pizzeria, but I think that Lorenzo is like enrolled legitimately, when he shows up I guess. I donât think heâs dropped out yet. I think basically heâs [Lorenzoâs] starting to like it, which is weird.
Do you ever get comparisons to Jersey Shore?
Yeah, all the time unfortunately, in the beginning more so, but now itâs getting a little less, but honestly the only thing thatâs similar is that âJerseyâ? is in the title of our name, and thatâs it. The shows are so completely different and people are like âyouâre jumping on the Jersey Shore bandwagonâ?, but our show was in concept years before Jersey Shore was being created. Part of it was because theyâre so like picky about who they let on the show that the casting process took much longer than Jersey Shoreâs did, because they clearly have NO standards, they let anybody on that show.