It’s a brand new season of The Challenge with Vets and New Threats, and Johnny Bananas is already in the spotlight!
The seven-time champion returned to compete again, fresh off another feud with Devin Walker and an appearance in the Season 40 final.
Unlike his previous season, Bananas has his eyes on one of his castmates and made it clear early in a Season 41 special episode.
He previously hooked up with and dated castmates in previous installments of The Challenge, including Morgan Willett and Moriah Jadea.
Neither of those situations ended all that well for Bananas, as both included some feelings hurt along the way.
And now some fans are over the longtime MTV star’s antics and have expressed their displeasure with him in recent comments.
Bananas showed interest in his rookie Season 41 castmate
The Challenge: Vets and New Threats Day Zero special aired on MTV last week, featuring an introduction to all of the rookie competitors. Among them was Dee Valladares, who competed on and won Survivor.
In a clip from the Day Zero special, Dee asks Bananas who he’s feeling best with, and he tells her he’d choose her as his teammate.
However, Dee revealed in a confessional interview that if she could avoid partnering with anyone, it’d be Bananas.
“He has a lot of enemies, and I might not want that on my side,” she said.
In his confessional remarks, Bananas said Dee posed the biggest threat to his “single life as a man.”
“It’s not cupid’s arrow. I think I got hit with a Cuban’s empanada right between the eyes,” he joked in the interview comments.
Earlier in the episode, host TJ Lavin interrogated the rookies. Dee revealed she was able to manipulate people to win Survivor. She said she could do the same with The Challenge.
Towards the end of the special, all of the competitors assembled to get their teammates. Cast members chose a partner based on how they finished in an opening race up a mountain and down to The Challenge Season 41 house.
When Bananas had the pick, he took Dee for his partner, potentially creating a nightmare for the Survivor star. It’s also possible that he is playing right into her hands, as far as her manipulation of cast members.
Fans called out Bananas for Season 41 ‘ick’
Many people consider Bananas an infamous reality TV character, based on his previous moment with Sarah Rice. During Rivals III, he left her without any prize money in a jaw-dropping moment.
Messy relationships that didn’t work out with castmates Morgan and Moriah have also brought recent fan criticism.
That’s already occurred for some fans after seeing him in just a limited time on Season 41. On a Reddit subforum post, fans expressed disapproval of the former cast member of The Real World: Key West.
“I’ve been watching the Challenge since day one, and Johnny has given me the ick, also since day one (his Real World season),” one Reddit comment said.
“He is a pig. And an awful person who treats women terribly. Considering that most of us have seen what he’s working with, I’m surprised he manages to pull any woman to be honest,” another commenter wrote.
“Johnny has always been disgusting. I’ve watched from the beginning. He was terrible when he was younger, got moderately more likable in his late 20s (I think he just was better produced rather than less terrible), and is back to being a full on ick machine in his tender middle age,” a commenter said.
However, some commenters mentioned that Dee isn’t naive and knows what she’s doing, based on her previous behavior on Survivor. She won Season 45 of CBS’s competition, earning a $1 million prize.
“Did anybody watch Dee’s season of Survivor? She played that guy right to the end,” a Reddit commenter wrote.
The Challenge: Vets and New Threats airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
