Vinny Guadagnino made bank for showing his body.
During the Friday, April 25 episode of Kayla Nicole’s The Pre-Game podcast, the 37-year-old Jersey Shore star shared how lucrative his days at Chippendales turned out to be.
“It’s great. I always tell people it’s not like a strip club. I’ve made, like, over a million dollars doing it,” he said.
Guadagnino began his Chippendales stint in Las Vegas in 2019 as part of a month-long residency that featured him taking on the guest host role, though he did return later.
Kayla Nicole, 33, seemed stunned by how much the reality star made during his time dancing.
“Because I’ve done so many. They’re called residencies where you stay, and it’s the easiest money I’ve ever made,” he explained. “Just go there, live in Vegas, rip your shirt off.”
“What I do now is hard,” Guadagnino said of his new venture as a comedian, though the skill has been years in the making.
According to the MTV star, during a period when Jersey Shore stopped airing, he used his spare time to take improv classes.
“I was doing improv, and I was into comedy and sketch comedy, like Key and Peele and Chappelle Show ... So I did all that. And then I always wanted to do stand-up because I knew that was like the more gangster thing to do. But I either never had the balls to do it, or I just didn’t have the means,” he said.
Guadagnino added that living in Manhattan with “all the stages around me” gave him the push he needed to start “making money.”
“I’m like, I want this to be in my career for the rest of my life,” he said.
Ahead of the Dancing with the Stars contestant’s Chippendales debut in 2019, he told PEOPLE, “I have spent a lot of time in Vegas, I love it there.”
“Now, to be cast as guest host of Chippendales — wow, let’s do this! I guess my ‘Keto Guido’ diet is working!”
“Being a part of Chippendales and getting the chance to host, dance, show some skin and see my fans up close and personal at one of the most iconic shows on the Strip is always a blast,” Guadagnino said in a statement when he returned in 2023.
It was his fifth run in the Las Vegas show with the previous showcasing extra steamy shower scenes.
“Vinny’s energy both on stage and off is always infectious — he truly is part of our family,” Chippendales Director of Operations, Katerina Tabakhov, said of the “Italian stallion.”
“His insanely electric charisma takes our show to another level and the audiences can’t get enough of him!”
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His hard work paid off, as Guadagnino previously told PEOPLE that his diet to prepare him for the gig made him “miserable.”
“That time, I’m never eating a carb, never eating any sugar. [My diet is] literally very strict. And I’m miserable,” he said. “But, it looks good in a thong.”
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