Jersey Shore's Ronnie Ortiz-Magro Shares Daughter's Gut-Wrenching Reaction to His 2021 Legal Trouble

Ronnie Ortiz-Magro is looking back at a difficult time in his life.

On the Oct. 3 episode of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, the reality star detailed reaching "rock bottom" in 2021, during which he took a break from the show to seek mental health treatment and subsequently got sober after being arrested on suspicion of domestic violence against a partner.

"I lost everything. I lost my job. I almost lost my daughter," Ronnie—who shares Ariana Sky, 6, with ex Jen Harley, who was not involved in the alleged incident—said in a confessional. "I ended up losing my house. Everything I loved and cherished, was gone. Feeling like that is a feeling that I never want to feel again."

The 38-year-old ultimately avoided jail time for violating the probation that was given over a 2019 domestic violence case involving Jen when a judge gave him credit for completing his rehab program, TMZ reported in September 2021.

"I got in trouble with the law," Ronnie told patients of one of fellow recovering addict Lamar Odom's treatment centers, as seen on the Jersey Shore: Family Vacation episode, "and then I got a phone call that I was losing my daughter."

Without elaborating on his legal trouble, the reality star detailed his daughter's heartbreaking reaction to the news.

"Unfortunately, she was there to see my actions that day, when everything went down," he said. "And when I tried to talk to her, she wouldn't even look at me. That was heartbreaking to me. At that point it was like, I can't live this moment again."

In a confessional, Ronnie recalled, "Feeling Ariana's disappointment, I felt like I failed. As a parent, your job is to protect your child. That's something I should have protected her from and I didn't."

The Jersey Shore star told the treatment center patients that he was unable to see Ariana for six months. Ronnie, who noted he had first begun drinking as a teen, added, "I lived four or five of her years in a haze and I beat myself up for it. But you just gotta do the right thing. And I still don't have it figured out. I don't. But I'm figuring it out."

Ronnie—who split from Jen in late 2019— said he took anger management classes and "so many different things to make sure that I never got back to that moment.”

“I am becoming a better person," he added. "I'm happy, I'm healthy, I have my daughter and that's all that matters.”