Let the drama begin, as The Challenge: USA is just two episodes deep, and several castmates are going at it on social media. In a recent exchange, Survivor Shantel Smith called out her castmate’s “fake a**” activities with an alliance.
That castmate is Big Brother star Alyssa Lopez, who appeared on Season 23, and is close friends with Xavier Prather, that season’s winner and a member of the powerful Cookout alliance.
However, Alyssa has been doing her best to get revenge on said alliance during her time on The Challenge: USA. Shantel is now calling her out for “pretending to understand the movement” to benefit from that connection, among other things.
The Challenge: USA’s Alyssa Lopez calls out Shantel Smith
Taking to Twitter on Wednesday as The Challenge: USA, Episode 2 was airing, Alyssa Lopez retweeted a fan’s video clip from the show. In the scene, Shantel Smith provides some intel to her Survivor allies, including Tyson Apostol, Sarah Lacina, Desi Williams, and Ben Driegberner.
She tells them Big Brother’s Tiffany Mitchell is running the “whole Big Brother 23 clique.” It’s also mentioned in the episode that Tiffany is the “glue” holding things together and is trying to get the Love Island men to help her in the game. However, one of the episode’s focuses became Alyssa’s revenge plan toward The Cookout.
“Wait Shan I thought your story was I said this?” Alyssa said in her retweet along with a “#busted” tag.
Tiffany was considered a founder of The Cookout on Big Brother 23. Its members also included Xavier Prather, Kyland Young, Azah Awasum, and Derek Frazier. Alyssa was never part of the alliance on the BB 23 season and ultimately was used as a pawn by Xavier as part of The Cookout’s grand plan.
Alyssa finished in seventh place in Big Brother 23. Upon entering The Challenge: USA with castmates from her season, including multiple Cookout members, she and Derek Xiao made it clear they were looking for some revenge on the BB alliance.
Shantel Smith fires back at her castmate
Following Alyssa’s retweet of the video clip, Shan got on Twitter to share her thoughts on the matter. In one tweet, she claimed Alyssa had been using The Cookout to benefit from being close to the culture while she was plotting revenge on them.
“WAIT NOT ALYSSA @lysslopezz running around with the cookout all year benefiting from proximity to the culture – perpetrating and pretending to be understanding of the movement and it’s significance all the while plotting REVENGE,” Shan wrote, also adding a trash emoji and “#fakea**allies” tag.
In a follow-up tweet on the matter, Shan addressed Alyssa’s tweet claim, adding that production doesn’t show everything in the episode. Shan also told Alyssa put her Twitter name when she’s referring to her on the social media platform.
Shan didn’t stop with those tweets, though, also adding another in which she talked about how there’s an “Alyssa” type, which joins the “Karen” and “Becky” types in the world.
She defines an “Alyssa” in the tweet below, again calling her out for being fake and benefitting from “proximity” to The Cookout alliance for her own “advancement and opportunity.” Shan included a photo of Alyssa hanging out with friend Xavier.
In Episode 2 of The Challenge: USA, viewers saw that Alyssa and her teammate Enzo Palumbo, also from Big Brother, were being considered for the team sent into elimination. However, Alyssa convinced her friend Xavier to put in a good word with Tyson Apostol, who, along with teammate Justine Ndiba, was part of the power team.
Ultimately, Tyson was swayed by Xavier to throw in the team of Tiffany Mitchell and Cashel Barnett. Amazing Race stars James Wallington and Cayla Lee Platt defeated them in a close elimination battle. That ended Tiffany and Cashel’s time on the show and may have been the first domino to fall in Alyssa’s plan to get revenge on The Cookout.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.