One of the true icons in reality television is Eric Nies, a charismatic star who originally appeared in MTV’s first season of The Real World and participated in three seasons of The Challenge, winning two.
He also worked in other gigs with MTV, including hosting The Grind and Hangin’ w/MTV back when music videos were still in rotation on the channel.
Years later, he returned to the reality TV scene on Paramount Plus for the first season of The Real World Homecoming reunion series. That appearance got people hoping and wondering if he might return to the streaming service’s spinoff, The Challenge: All Stars.
Eric shares why he wasn’t on The Challenge: All Stars
During an appearance on the Mike Lewis Podcast this past week, original reality TV star Eric Nies spoke about his experiences appearing in that epic first season of The Real World and how things have changed so much from then up to now.
He agreed that things are entirely different with reality TV nowadays as it’s a business, and there’s an audience who wants to see the drama, which is mostly fights and hookups. Eric said real-world problems aren’t necessarily the focus of many reality TV shows these days.
Eric also spoke about how he had a rough time in his life when a manager took advantage of him, molested him, and stole from him, causing a lot of trauma in his life that he had to heal from. That led him on the path he’s on now towards helping others heal in their lives.
During the podcast episode, the 50-year-old Nies said he walked away from The Challenge at one point, but just recently, the All Stars spinoff popped up on Paramount Plus.
“At one time, I walked away from doing The Challenges, but just recently, when they started doing these All-Star ones, and after the Homecoming, I was gonna do the first one, but then I got COVID-19, and the show’s overlapped with each other so I couldn’t do the first one,” he told Mike Lewis.
He revealed that his vaccination status kept him from being part of the spinoff’s second season, although Eric says he was “lied” to by casting about why he wasn’t included.
“They invited me to do the second one, but we were in the middle of COVID-19, and I’m not vaccinated, and they lied to me. They were trying to get the information out of me whether or not I was vaccinated or not, and then when they found out that I wasn’t vaccinated, they didn’t choose for me to come on the show,” he shared.
Eric on whether he’d still consider doing All Stars
Eric says he found it interesting that he was told MTV had the final say in who made the cast for a show called The Challenge: All Stars when he was one of the original cast members on MTV’s shows. He also won The Challenge twice during his three seasons.
When asked if that means the door’s closed on him going on All Stars, he first said “pretty much,” although he made it seem there’s hope he’ll still go on the spinoff.
“I don’t know. Now that COVID’s over, I don’t know if they’re choosing people that are not vaccinated or vaccinated, but they’re definitely biased, that’s for sure,” he told Mike Lewis.
Eric said he thinks he’d be open to appearing on the show if a call came through, though.
“There’s one kid- I forgot what his name is, who won a couple of Challenges. He’s huge. He’s got millions of followers. He was in the press for it, I know that, and he wasn’t vaccinated, and they didn’t choose him, and he came out publicly and talked about it,” Eric shared.
“It doesn’t get anymore OG or All-Star than this,” Eric said regarding not being in the cast. “I’m like the Godfather. The grandfather.”
Mark Long holds that Godfather nickname, but Eric Nies certainly is the grandfather when it comes to reality TV stars, as he’s the pioneer in what was once just a television experiment. Hopefully, for the sake of fans, there will be more seasons of All Stars with Eric Nies able to show up in at least one of the spinoff seasons.
The Challenge: All Stars 3 premieres on May 11 on Paramount Plus.