As The Challenge: Ride or Dies season has seen more teams eliminated from the game, it’s made things difficult for competitors to choose teams to go into The Zone.
That led to some uncomfortable moments for recent daily challenge winners Jay Starrett and Michele Fitzgerald after they had to choose veteran cast members as potential elimination teams.
They put Laurel Stucky and Jakk Maddox into The Zone for two-straight episodes and had to face them during the interrogation. In Ride or Dies Episode 6, Laurel and Jakk were eliminated by Jordan Wiseley and Aneesa Ferreira.
During the recent episodes and after they aired, Jakk referred to Jay as “trash” or a “fraud” and even said he blocked his number.
Laurel hadn’t commented much about them after the recent elimination episode aired, but during the episode, she asked Jordan to go back to The Challenge house and get rid of Jay and Michele.
However, a rumored message from a group text popped up online, seemingly showing Jay bashing Laurel, which Jay and Michele have since debunked.
Jay and Michele debunk Ride or Dies message bashing Laurel
Sometimes fans cross the line regarding the drama involved with The Challenge, which could be the case with a recent message that popped up via a screenshot on Twitter.
The message was said to be part of a group chat involving Ride or Dies cast members, with Jay expressing his feelings about the situation with Laurel.
“I’m not ready to discuss that b***h Laurel yet, but clearly you guys know how I feel about her,” the message said in the screenshot with a profile pic similar to Jay’s next to it.
A superfan account on Instagram shared a screenshot of that original message and some comments from Jay and Michele.
“Ok this is not real Jay does not talk like that,” Michele wrote, with Jay replying, “Hahah mich don’t listen or read this dummies fake s**t haha. #dummys**t.”
Jay and Michele’s elimination picks upset castmates
Every time a team wins in The Challenge: Ride or Dies daily challenges, they get safety from elimination. However, they also have the unenviable task of selecting four teams for possible elimination, one of which they can send in at The Zone.
Jay and Michele won the daily events in Episodes 5 and 6, which had them scrambling to decide who to put into the elimination.
They targeted Laurel and Jakk, putting them into the Episode 5 elimination, but the rookie duo of Colleen and Kim could not defeat them.
Jay and Michele made sure Laurel and Jakk returned for the elimination in Episode 6, doing their best to pit them against a strong veteran team of Jordan and Aneesa.
However, that also involved them making some other moves that ruffled the feathers of castmates when they chose Johnny Bananas and Nany Gonzalez and Kaycee Clark with her brother Kenny as the other two teams.
That made Nany upset that she and her girlfriend were going into The Zone, with Jay explaining that they wanted to give her and Kaycee a chance to save one another so that Aneesa and Jordan would go against Jakk and Laurel.
That worked in Jay and Michele’s favor but came at a cost, as they’ll likely have to deal with more repercussions in the upcoming episodes. Jordan said in a confessional before Episode 6 ended that he was headed back to the house ready for “vengeance.”
The Challenge: Ride or Dies airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.