With greater than three dozen seasons and greater than 500 episodes up to now, The Challenge is definitely one in all MTV’s greatest hits. The present premiered on June 1, 1998, as Street Guidelines: All-Stars, a Street Guidelines spinoff starring solid members from The Actual World. Since then, the sequence has undergone different transformations, rebranding as Actual World/Street Guidelines Problem after which simply The Problem and incorporating stars from different actuality reveals.
And alongside the best way, controversy after controversy has piled up each on display and off, as you’ll see under.
Content material warning: This text covers racist feedback and allegations of sexual assault.
Tonya Cooley’s lawsuit
In 2011, The Problem alum Tonya Cooley sued MTV, Bunim/Murray Productions, and former costars Evan Starkman and Kenny Santucci, alleging that Starkman and Santucci sexually assaulted her when she was handed out through the taping of Season 18, a.ok.a. 2009’s The Problem: The Ruins, per E! News.
Bunim/Murray denied the allegations, telling E! that after a “thorough investigation,” the corporate discovered Tonya Cooley’s claims “utterly baseless.”
The case was settled out of court docket in 2012, and the events are legally barred from discussing the alleged incident, E! provides. Us Weekly studies that Cooley, Starkman, and Santucci are all banned from the present.
Camila Nakagawa’s racism scandal
Camila Nakagawa dropped racial slurs in an argument with costar Leroy Garrett throughout 2017’s The Problem: Soiled 30, in response to E! News. Garrett later revisited the incident in a 2021 Instagram video, saying it was unacceptable that nobody within the manufacturing stepped in to cease her. Nakagawa responded to Garrett’s Instagram publish with a video of her personal, telling followers she does “not condone racism” and that she was taking anti-racism programs, per People.
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Georgia Harrison’s black face make-up
In 2019, Twitter customers accused The Problem competitor Georgia Harrison of blackface — and known as for MTV to fireside her — after a photograph of her carrying black make-up circulated, as People reported on the time. A rep for the fact star advised Folks that the allegations that Harrison was racist have been “disgusting and actually worrying” and claimed that the photograph got here from a toddler’s party throughout which the kid requested for Harrison’s face to be painted black and silver.
Dee Nguyen’s Black Lives Matter feedback
In 2020, MTV announced on Twitter it had minimize ties with frequent The Problem competitor Dee Nguyen after she made “offensive feedback on the Black Lives Matter motion.”
In a single Instagram remark, Nguyen had minimized the killing of George Floyd by saying that individuals “die each f–king day,” in response to Us Weekly.
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Nguyen later apologized for her “insensitive” remarks, per Us. “Let me be clear, I’m a POC that cares about BLM,” she added. “I consider on this motion, and I’m stepping away from social media to deal with my wellbeing and psychological well being.”
Lauren Coogan’s gaslighting accusations
After Lauren Coogan was minimize from Season 37, a.ok.a. 2021’s The Problem: Spies, Lies & Allies following the primary episode, she claimed in a now-deleted tweet (by way of Us) that she had been “gaslit and scapegoated” by a significant community.
She went on: “Actuality TV is meant to be a supply of leisure and enjoyable. To interrupt the monotony of actual life for the viewers. We didn’t signal as much as be position fashions or politicians. We’re simply folks figuring it out (in entrance of hundreds of thousands) each courageous and loopy sufficient to place our lives on the market for the pure amusement of whoever chooses to look at.”
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Days later, Coogan dodged a query about her Spies, Lies & Allies exit in an Instagram Q&A. “I don’t actually need to reply as a result of it was so traumatic and led me into lots of remedy and counseling and the worst time of my life,” she wrote.
Cory Wharton’s vaccine refusal
Later that season, The Problem’s Cory Wharton advised followers he’d must miss the Spies, Lies & Alliessolid reunion due to the manufacturing’s vaccine necessities. “No Problem reunion for me, they mentioned, as a result of my vaccination standing,” he wrote in a now-deleted tweet, per Us. “They’re actually are strong-arming folks these days.”
Followers of the MTV present criticized Wharton for his stance. “Folks will die since you select to show others and unfold a virus. #vaccineswork #doitforyourdaughter,” one particular person tweeted, as Us reported.
Ashley Mitchell’s early exit
As Spies, Lies & Allies continued, Ashley Mitchell was disqualified offscreen, with The Problem host T.J. Lavin telling the opposite opponents solely that she had damaged the foundations, per Entertainment Weekly. The evening that episode aired, Mitchell tweeted that she was “mad at [herself” and “taking anger management and reflecting a lot.”
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However in a stay episode of the podcast Challenge Mania this December, costar Josh Martinez provided particulars on what went down between him and Mitchell: “I feel it was a missed alternative for [the show] to point out one thing actual, not solely that I’ve been via and skilled however one thing on the market that lots of people on the market undergo,” he mentioned. “On the finish of the day, she attacked one thing that lots of people battle with, and it’s no one’s enterprise. Not solely that, she shouldn’t have gone that low.”
