Former Big Brother and The Challenge star Chris “Swaggy C” Williams recently shared his thoughts about the situation involving his former castmate Dee Nguyen, who made what was deemed as an insensitive joke about the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
Fans saw MTV cut ties with Dee after she shared the joke on her social media during the Total Madness season, and the network subsequently cut ties with her, banning her from ever appearing on their show again.
While Swaggy shared that he was upset at the time over Dee’s comment, he also said that he didn’t want her banned forever and wished she could still be part of The Challenge.
Swaggy C comments about Dee Nguyen’s Total Madness situation
Big Brother’s Swaggy C joined MTV’s The Challenge for one season, Total Madness, along with then-girlfriend Bayleigh Dayton, who is now his wife.
The season featured castmates living in a cold bunker and enduring some difficult conditions. While appearing on the Mike Lewis Podcast, he spoke about his experience on The Challenge and also the Dee Nguyen controversy that unfolded online during the season.
In speaking with Mike Lewis about the insensitive joke that Dee made, Swaggy called it a “very crazy situation” and said people need to understand its context.
“She was saying this [joke] with everything going on with George Floyd and the protest, so it was really, really heightened,” he said, adding, “I do think it was handled correctly [by MTV]. My only issue and Bayleigh’s only issue was, first of all, we didn’t want Dee to get banned at all. Nobody knows that. Second of all, if she did get banned, we did not want her to get banned for life.”
He explained that The Challenge producers will typically tell a problematic cast member to “take a season off” and that they’ll bring them back for the “next one.” That wasn’t the case for Dee, who was no longer allowed back after Total Madness.
“With Dee, I feel like they could’ve banned her for [Seasons] 36 and 37, and then [she’d] come back for 38,” Swaggy told Mike Lewis.
Additionally, Swaggy said he was “very, very upset” that Dee made the joke since he and Bayleigh are “obviously Black,” and they’d just seen another Black person get killed “unarmed and unjustly.” He also added that he regrets some of what he tweeted about Dee in the wake of her joke about BLM.
Swaggy mentioned he made one comment in a tweet about Dee to the effect of: “her mom doesn’t know that she’s on TV, and she tells her mom she’s a marketer, and she’s living a double life.”
“That stuff I’m not proud of, not happy about whatsoever. I do regret that type of stuff,” he said, adding, “I really, really wish that she only got suspended so that she could be on now because she was a great competitor.”
Check out Swaggy C’s comments about the Dee situation starting at the 32-minute mark in the video below.
Dee got heavily edited out of Total Madness episodes
Following Dee’s insensitive joke, MTV began to run a disclaimer ahead of their Total Madness episodes indicating they’d cut ties with the former champion. In addition, the remaining episodes of that season were heavily edited to mostly remove her from any key scenes she’d been in.
She reached Episode 15 of the season, getting eliminated in a Hall Brawl against one of the eventual Total Madness winners, Jenny West.
The 29-year-old from Sydney, Australia, was a winner during the season before that, War of the Worlds 2, alongside Team UK teammates Rogan O’Connor, Jordan Wiseley, and Chris “CT” Tamburello.
However, after her ban from MTV, she’s been working elsewhere and also in promotion mode, often sharing racy content with her fans and followers and directing them to her exclusive OnlyFans content.
Many fans are probably wondering with MTV recently bringing back other cast members after controversial incidents on the show, including All Stars 3’s Jordan Wiseley and Nia Moore, will result in The Challenge deciding to drop their ban on Dee. Based on Swaggy’s comments, he’d like to see her back competing again, but that doesn’t appear like it’s happening anytime soon.
The Challenge Season 38 is TBA for MTV. The Challenge: All Stars 3 episodes arrive Wednesdays on Paramount Plus.