Rutgers U. defends decision to pay Jersey Shore star "Snooki" $32,000 for recent on-campus appearance
People.com
April 3, 2011
Snooki, whose novel A Shore Thing was released in January, may not win a Nobel Prize for Literature, but she is earning more money than someone with that honor for speaking at Rutgers University.
The Jersey Shore star headlined an event Thursday called "Inside the Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi Studio" at the school in Piscataway, N.J., where 1,000 students heard her talk about fist pumping, her signature hair pouf and the "GTL" lifestyle she lives out on reality TV, the university confirms to PEOPLE. She earned a whopping $32,000.
Her fee was $2,000 more than what the university will pay Nobel prize-winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison, who is booked to speak in a 52,000-seat football stadium at commencement in May.