It’s only two episodes in, but former Real World and The Challenge star Karamo Brown is already loving the All Stars 2 spinoff season.
The Challenge alum reacted to several emotional moments from Episode 2 courtesy of Ayanna Mackins and Derek Chavez.
That prompted the All Stars 2 cast members to comment after receiving praise from another Challenge OG for their memorable scenes in the recent episode.
Karamo praises Derek and Ayana after All Stars 2 moments
The Challenge: All Stars 2, Episode 2 featured some emotionally tough scenes, both of which played into the elimination event. The first arrived as cast member Derek Chavez revealed to some of his castmates, and in a confessional, he found out his younger sister had taken her life just as he was leaving to film the show.
His Real World castmates Jonna Mannion and Jasmine Reynaud comforted him, and Derek said he would honor his sister by competing hard in the elimination against Nehemiah Clark.
Jonna drew a heart using a black marker on his arm with the letters “BRE” inside to honor Breana. Derek would go on to lose his elimination but said he knew his sister was proud watching him.
The episode’s other elimination featured former Road Rules star Ayanna Mackins’ impressive performance as she defeated Real Worlder Leah Gillingwater. Leah failed to drag any of her three coffins across the playing field, while Ayanna seemed to do it with brute force.
After celebrating her win, Ayanna went over to her opponent Leah, who was kneeling on the ground in tears. She told her she wasn’t going to give up and helped her drag a coffin across the playing field to the other side so she’d complete at least one.
It was an emotional moment for cast members and viewers, including Karamo Brown, who said it had him in tears. He praised Derek as a “fighter” and called Ayanna’s move to help her castmate finish “powerful.”
In a follow-up tweet, Karamo asked everyone to give a round of applause for Derek and Ayanna based on their scenes in the All Stars 2 episode, calling them “the winners” of the season.
Based on his tweets, Karamo is definitely enjoying what he’s seen so far on All Stars 2, with at least eight more episodes remaining for the spinoff and the potential for other emotional moments to arrive.
Derek and Ayanna react to Karamo’s comments
Following Karamo’s comments, both Ayanna and Derek took to Twitter to react to what The Challenge alum said about them.
“THIS means EVERYTHING coming from you! I am such a fan, truly!” Ayanna wrote in reply to one of Karamo’s tweets.
“coming from a true O.G. @Karamo thanks bb,” Derek said in a retweet of Karamo’s post.
Derek appeared on MTV’s Official Challenge Podcast after the All Stars 2 episode to speak more about his story involving his sister. In addition, he shared a video message reacting to the outpouring of love and support he received from people after they saw his emotional moments in the episode.
Karamo Brown made his debut on MTV’s The Real World: Philadelphia, where he was a castmate of MJ Garrett, who currently appears with Ayanna and Derek on All Stars 2. After his RW season, Karamo did one season of The Challenge, Inferno II in 2005, and lasted until Episode 6, where another RW castmate, Landon Lueck, eliminated him.
Karamo’s gone on to big things since his time on MTV’s shows. He competed on Dancing with the Stars’ 28th season, has released several books, and has been part of many television shows. He’s been on Netflix’s Queer Eye series since 2018.
Along with those and other endeavors, Karamo is also an activist. He travels the country speaking about issues the LGBTQIA+ community faces and received the 2018 Human Rights Visibility Campaign Award.
The Challenge: All Stars 2 episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus.