The Challenge: All Stars reunion featured almost half of the OG cast as they took part in a trip down memory lane. During the event, they brought up most of the hot topics from the past season, including the feuds and fallouts between cast members and even former friends.
They also touched upon various memorable moments and voting strategies that took place during the All Stars season. However, a few cast members were not part of the event and therefore unable to speak on things or defend themselves.
In a recent tweet, a former Challenge competitor called it a “missed opportunity” for the All Stars reunion cast due to at least one person’s absence from the episode. That cast member seemingly responded and reacted to fans about it too.
Former Challenge competitor brings up ‘missed opportunity’
Among the cast members not present for the All Stars reunion episode were Alton Williams, Aneesa Ferreira, and Kendal Sheppard. All three had stories that intersected with Jisela Delgado, who commented on the various situations. Jemmye Carroll and others also weighed in with their opinions and comments.
Early in the reunion episode, the hosts brought up Kendal’s infamous daily challenge moment where she hopped to the wrong area on the platform up above the water. Everyone else who missed questions in that trivia challenge had to move forward to a spot where the floor gave way beneath them, dropping them into the water. However, Kendal decided to go sit on the platform after she lost, rather than dropping into the water.
That caused her to be the first female competitor voted into an elimination, as she was an easy target. Of course, this came up during the reunion, with Jisela continuing to call Kendal out and KellyAnne stepping in to defend her friend. Jemmye also spoke up saying that the voting was really a “popularity contest” and since Kendal wasn’t the most liked person at that moment of the season it made her an easy vote.
With Kendal not at the reunion, it’s hard to know if she would have defended herself more than she already has about the matter. However, Challenge: Final Reckoning competitor Angela Babicz, also Nelson Thomas’ ex, tweeted her reaction to Kendal’s absence.
“Not having @KendalSheppard at #TheChallengeAllStars reunion was a missed opportunity considering she was the topic of conversation for the first 10 mins,” Angela tweeted.
Plenty of fans seem to agree with Angela and even commented on Twitter with their own tweets calling out the reunion for not including Kendal.
Kendal responds to fan about All Stars reunion
For those wondering about Kendal’s absence, it doesn’t seem that she skipped the reunion or had any major reason to miss it. She gave a simple reply to a fan who asked her about it on Twitter.
“Wasn’t invited,” Kendal said, adding a “don’t know why” emoji, which probably sums up how a lot of viewers were feeling about her absence.
Two other major absences were easily Aneesa and Alton. Jisela spoke quite a bit about each subject including her falling out with Aneesa. Other cast members even tried to mend things despite Jisela being clearly ready to move away from the topic.
With Alton, his rumored marriage was mentioned with cast members speaking about his “baby’s mom” and situation back home. He was unable to address any of that, and might never do so on social media.
Beth Stolarczyk was part of the reunion, despite her being eliminated two episodes prior to the episode Kendal was eliminated in. It’s possible someone behind the scenes felt Beth might give more perspective on a variety of events that took place during the season, and wouldn’t hold back with her comments.
It’s unknown if the other cast members were not invited to the reunion episode. Also, there’s been no explanation why other cast members couldn’t appear by video conferencing similar to Double Agents reunion or the Aftermath episodes.
However, it’s worth noting that the Double Agents reunion was also missing cast members Lolo Jones and Theresa Jones, who were both topics of conversation during the episode, and neither was on videoconferencing either.
Kendal retweets fan comments about her absence
In addition to her reply to a fan, Kendal also retweeted a few comments from fans (below). One is about how people shouldn’t get “salty” when cast members can’t defend themselves.
“Don’t get salty at people defending someone who’s not there to defend themself! Just sayin. That’s weird to me,” the fan’s tweet said. They may be referring to KellyAnne defending Kendal, or fans defending Kendal, when she was brought up at the reunion.
Another fan brought up all that Kendal accomplished on the All Stars season and how it didn’t make sense for her to be absent from the reunion.
“I’m so mad. They didn’t even invite my sis Kendal to the reunion? She literally won 2 eliminations and 3 daily challenges. She barely lost the last elimination before the final. Put some m***********g respect on my sis Kendal’s name,” the fan’s comment said.
The retweets may say a lot, but Kendal may react to the episode more at a later point on social media. She certainly was amongst the stars of the season, with her success in daily challenges and eliminations and nearly making it to the final. She also appears to have made new friends, including KellyAnne, Mark, and even Jisela, who said she’d trust Kendal before she’d trust Aneesa.
The Challenge: All Stars episodes are currently available on Paramount Plus.