Inside - How Far Is Tattoo Far?

America’s favorite “meatball” on Jersey Shore, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, and TV Land’s Younger, Nico Tortorella, host MTV’s show, How Far Is Tattoo Far?

- Tess Adamakos

At nine pm on Thursdays, better known to Jersey Shore fans as “Jerzdays,” you can watch Nicole drink wine and Nico tease guests under the needle, fueling the anticipation for blindfolded “victims” to wait out the surprise tattoo-choice that friends, couples, family members, and frenemies pick for one another. The US adaptation is based off the UK’s hit show, Just Tattoo of Us, and is already currently casting for a possible second season.

The two bond over coming from big Italian families, loving tattoo culture, and the opportunity to be able to share the intimacy of two people picking surprise tattoos for one another. The perfect pair even finish each other’s sentences. As Tortorella said, “Nicole and I together are the perfect combination of drag queen and Jersey Shore.”

Polizzi started her tattoo journey on her 18th birthday, when her dad let her get wings on her lower back. Polizzi loves what she fondly calls her “tramp stamp.” Nine tattoos later, she regrets none of them. All of them were done while drunk. “They hurt so bad, I have to be drunk or I cry,” Polizzi said.

While many of the Jersey Shore cast’s tattoos are religious, a majority of Nicole’s art is done in the name of motherhood. She has a squirrel for her son, Lorenzo, whom she called “Squirrel” when he was little, as well as a “mommy tattoo” on her right arm, and her children’s initials, “G” and “L.”

On Younger, Nico Tortorella plays Josh, a tattoo artist, and says that there is some overlap in playing that character and hosting How Far is Tattoo Far? “I feel like a lot of me is in Josh and obviously all of me is in what I’m doing on the show,” Tortorella said. “Hosting a show like this requires it to be all you and is just our hearts across the board.”