Cue up the drama between a former Big Brother star and The Challenge Season 41 cast!
The new season of MTV’s show is only three episodes deep, but it is already causing some interesting reactions from people on and off the show.
Unlike Season 40, The Challenge: Vets and New Threats didn’t bring back any of the former Big Brother stars who have competed on the competition series.
Instead, several rookies appeared in recent seasons of BB, including America Lopez, Blue Kim, and Cedric Hodges.
Of those three, Cedric has seemingly emerged as a new threat, while Blue and America might not be, yet, or ever.
However, online drama has started by one of the former BB stars on the show, Paulie Calafiore, and his castmate from The Challenge, Derrick Kosinski!
Big Brother star called out Season 41 vets
With the Vets in the title for Season 41, they included former multi-time winners such as CT Tamburello, Johnny Bananas, Ashley Mitchell, Cara Maria Sorbello, and Derrick.
In a recent call-out message on X, Paulie Calafiore suggested the older vets in recent seasons aren’t capable of competing like they did in their heyday.
“Nobody should be surprised at the embarrassing performances by the old male vets. I been trying to tell y’all since I came on that they need to be done. They couldn’t keep up on WOTW1 & 2, they can’t keep up now,” he wrote.
Based on the other part of his message, he believes Bananas is one of the few vets who returns to try to win the show, rather than “showing up just to collect a paycheck.”
“Season 40 should have been the end of it, but season 41 is proving it again. Stay on All Stars where you belong,” Paulie finished his X message, including #TheChallenge hashtag.
The Challenge star fired back at Paulie’s remarks
As seen in the collection of messages above, Derrick joined others in responding to Paulie’s critical remarks.
“You woulda been right there getting DQ’d on the wall with Leroy, Theo & Ben. FOH with you wanna be good at the challenge havin’ a**,” Derrick wrote, including a crying laughing emoji.
He also included a fan’s posted video clip showing Paulie’s trouble climbing a net wall in a challenge over water, likely from War of the Worlds, where Paulie got purged.
Derrick is known as one of the top stars from the MTV competition series. A lot of this is based on his gritty elimination performances that he endured and won in previous seasons. In addition, he’s a multi-time champ.
Paulie’s recent performances on The Challenge were lacking
In terms of seasons won, Derrick, 41, is right up there at three, but they occurred earlier in his MTV career. Derrick, now 38, won three-straight finals with The Inferno 3, The Island, and The Ruins.
He also appeared in two other MTV finals, with Dirty 30 being his most recent. Since then, viewers had first seen his return on The Challenge: All Stars spinoff, along with other longtime MTV stars.
Meanwhile, Paulie appeared in two MTV finals, with Final Reckoning and War of the Worlds 2. Both were losses to other teams, with many fans pointing out Paulie’s “gassing-out” moments from that WOTW2 final.
After several seasons away, Paulie returned to The Challenge: USA spinoff and was eliminated in an early episode by Bananas. He then appeared in Season 40, Battle of the Eras, where he lost to his Era 4 teammate, Theo Campbell.
Whether or not Paulie, 36, returns to The Challenge remains to be seen, but he didn’t seem well-prepared in his last two seasons to stay in the game.
Several other stars from Big Brother have won a final before him, with Amber Borzotra and Kaycee Clark making history on The Challenge.
It’s worth noting that both those Big Brother stars’ wins were with older MTV vet, CT Tamburello (now 45), as their partner in the final. Additionally, CT was part of a four-person winning team, Team UK, in the final of WOTW 2.
The Challenge: Vets and New Threats airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
