The Challenge star Kendal Sheppard won over the hearts of many fans all over again with her return to compete on the All Stars spinoff show.
During the season, she showed her abilities in terms of winning daily challenges and was considered a major threat by many of her castmates. Some of them didn’t get along with her, but seemed to grow to appreciate her over the course of the season, or after it ended.
With that said, she recently spoke about her return to compete on The Challenge and addressed whether she’d ever do it again, or wants to stay away from the show.
Spoilers will follow for The Challenge: All Stars up through Episode 8 of the spinoff season.
Kendal had struggles and success on All Stars
Kendal was originally a cast member of Road Rules: Campus Crawl and then appeared on just one season of The Challenge. That was The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno, and she was part of a winning team. The group also included her Road Rules castmate Darrell Taylor, Katie Cooley, Veronica Portillo, and Abram Boise, among others.
With just that one season of MTV’s reality competition show back in 2004, her return to The Challenge for Mark Long’s All Stars concept put her into an updated version of the game. This time it was more of an individual competition. It brought more intense daily challenges, eliminations, and all of the in-game social or political aspects that fans have seen over the many seasons.
During All Stars, viewers saw Kendal getting sent into an early elimination due to other castmates believing she refused to fall into the water during a daily trivia challenge. Kendal tried to explain what happened, but castmates, including Jisela Delgado, felt she wasn’t being accountable and should volunteer herself to go into elimination.
She’d get voted into that elimination and then defeated Trishelle Cannatella in a grueling event featuring long heavy ropes called Knot So Fast.
Kendal also achieved three daily challenge wins throughout the season and a second elimination victory. That one saw her teamed up with Mark Long, someone who didn’t seem to get along with her early on, but after they won, he said whatever feud they had was squashed. He even commented that he’d love to run a final with her.
Unfortunately, her third elimination came just an episode later as Nehemiah Clark was voted in and chose Kendal to be his partner. They lost to Jisela and her teammate, Eric “Big Easy” Banks, ending Kendal and Nehemiah’s chances at $500,000 right before host TJ Lavin told everyone else they were in the final.
Not long after the airing of Kendal’s exit, she did an Instagram Live where she answered some fan questions. That included Kendal revealing that Jisela and her had talked about things, and there were apologies. Kendal said she even sent Jisela a gift because Jisela was really upset Kendal didn’t hug her after their elimination.
Will Kendal return for The Challenge: All Stars Season 2?
While Kendal had a few feuds and struggles during the All Stars season, she’s open to returning. She mentioned during US Magazine’s Watch With Us podcast episode that she “definitely would.”
She said, “I definitely would. I went in with a certain expectation, I guess, and that was totally not what I was supposed to be there for,”
“What I walked out with is so much more than what I had planned and found this internal spring that I didn’t know I had. The challenges, they’re like these little mini-adventures, and that was really amazing,” Kendal said.
Kendal also mentioned during that interview that she initially was feeling isolated during the All Stars season, and some days there were “very difficult” but as things moved along it got better.
“To start out, things were rough socially, emotionally, physically — all of it was rough. And then, by the end I had some friends, like I was starting to get down the routine of things. I feel like I just sort of found my groove. So, by the end, I was really loving it. That’s where I think I would start from next time. I would hope,” she shared.
A lot of fans would love to see Kendal Sheppard return for The Challenge: All Stars Season 2. That exit just before being able to compete in TJ’s final was a rough moment based on how well she did during her second-ever appearance on the competitive show.
First, Paramount Plus needs to announce it’s been renewed for Season 2. Based on many online comments pointing towards All Stars’ popularity and over 100 former stars expressing interest, it’d be a surprise if the show didn’t get another season.
The Challenge: All Stars episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus.