The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies featured 34 cast members at the start of the season, with 19 of them brand new to the reality competition series.
That included international rookies from reality shows based in other countries such as Big Brother, Survivor, and Paradise Hotel.
Based on recent online speculation from a Challenge insider, one of the Season 37 rookies may not be returning to the show, possibly due to an explicit musical performance on a previous reality TV program.
The Challenge Season 37 rookie may not return to the show
One of the more successful rookies during the Spies, Lies & Allies season has been Emy Alupei, a former Survivor Romania star. The 22-year-old joined the cast along with her Survivor castmate Emanuel Neagu and has been featured as a favorite amongst many of the veteran competitors.
MTV has also seemed to promote her quite a bit, showcasing her new song Alien, as Emy delivered a performance of the song during the cast’s time at the club in an episode. That episode was even named Alien, a reference to her song.
In Episode 12 of Season 37, she captured her third elimination win, the most of any rookie. In addition, she won a daily challenge earlier in the season with veteran castmate CT Tamburello as her teammate.
However, recent online speculation from Challenge insider @GamerVev on Twitter suggests Emy is “being investigated” and “may not be on the next season” of the MTV reality competition series.
Her being “investigated” seems to refer to those behind casting and production for MTV’s show looking into Emy’s actions before she arrived on The Challenge. The nature of the investigation isn’t known, but the tweet above speculates that it could be due to “the X Factor performance.”
X Factor performance involved use of racial slur
In addition to appearing on Survivor Romania, Emy Alupei also appeared on X Factor Romania, a talent show where Emy displayed her musical abilities.
The performance took place during Season 6 of the show, as Emy did a rendition of Sia’s Chandelier for the judges and audience. She switched up to Nicki Minaj’s hip-hop song Only at one point in her performance and used a racial slur several times as part of the song’s lyrics.
The X Factor Romania YouTube channel still has the video (NSFW) of the performance on their channel from 2016 (below). This performance could be the basis for the investigation into The Challenge Season 37 rookie.
Recent Challenge cast members fired, kicked off show
Several seasons ago on Total Madness, cast member Dee Nguyen made offensive remarks about Black Lives Matter on social media that resulted in her being heavily edited out of the remaining episodes of that season. MTV also revealed that they’d cut ties with Dee, and she has not been invited back to The Challenge since.
Another Spies, Lies & Allies rookie, Lauren Coogan, was rumored to have been kicked off the show for a racial remark she made towards a castmate. That’s still online speculation from GamerVev at a Challenge Vevmo forum as of this report.
While Lauren got heavily edited out of the premiere episode, MTV didn’t release any statements about the matter, nor have they said they cut ties with her.
Lauren was replaced in the season’s second episode by Amber Borzotra, with no further explanation for the rookie’s departure. She has commented about the situation on her Twitter and Instagram Story several times, even indicating she feels she could return to The Challenge.
The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.