Jersey Shore star Snooki explains why she 'couldn't breathe' after boob job

One of the biggest reality TV stars of the past 20 years has shared how her decision to get breast implants left her struggling for air and shocked at what the surgeons had done.

Best known as Jersey Shore's 'Snooki', Nicole Polizzi shared her candid recollection of the terrifying surgery while speaking with Kristin Cavallari's podcast Let's Be Honest, also telling the host about her recent cancer diagnosis.

The 38-year-old was among the most well-known and well-paid of reality TV stars in the early 2010s, reportedly earning $150,000 per episode at the peak of her notoriety and starring in more than a dozen other shows.

Having become notorious, even by New Jersey standards, for her drunken antics, Snooki's whole life changed after finding out in 2012 that she was pregnant. Not that it stopped her from sharing every moment with her legions of fans and haters.

Snooki came onto our screens in 2009 (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

But the now mom-of-three found that having kids had caused her a bigger physical change than she liked, so, in 2016, she decided to get a breast enlargement.

Speaking to Cavallari, Polizzi said her experience of having Lorenzo and Giovanna with husband Jionni LaValle, now 13, 11, and 39, left her needing a 'little mommy makeover'.

At the time, she shared her decision making process in a YouTube video, saying: “Being a mom, your boobs are destroyed after having kids, especially breastfeeding. I want to be hot for my husband, but I also want to feel great about myself, and it was an insecurity that I had.”

So she asked her plastic surgeon for a 'nice full C' cup, but when she woke up, Snooki was terrified by the state the augmentation had left her body in.

“I woke up and it was like a dump truck on my [chest],” she said to Cavallari. “I couldn't breathe. I was freaking out.”

Polizzi then did what no one should do after a major operation like this, she 'took the bandage off to have a look'.

“There was like a hole in my nipple. I was like, what is that? There were guts coming out,” she shared, horrifyingly, on the May 19 podcast episode.

Snooki has shared what it looked like when she took off the bandages (Raymond Hall/GC Images)

Although Cavallari was, justifiably, perturbed by Snooki's inquisitiveness after a major surgery, the reality star said that she would actually 'do that again eventually', especially after welcoming a third addition to her family a few years later.

Regardless, Snooki shared how the procedure was 'definitely painful' and had left her unable to pick up her kids and made it hard to sleep. :At night I can’t really sleep because you have to sleep propped up," she said.

These are all standard reactions to breast augmentation operations, which are classified as a major surgery and can require up to three months to heal properly - in which time you can't pick up any heavy objects, including your kids.

In recent months, Snooki has sadly become more familiar with these medical procedures, following her diagnosis of stage one cervical cancer that she shared with the world in February.

She told Cavallari that this had 'terrified' her, adding: “I definitely had a breakdown. Like, oh my god, what am I gonna do? Like I got to get my will in place. Like, what’s going to happen? Like, planning my funeral. I was being so dramatic.”