In The Challenge: USA’s second episode, Cashel Barnett found himself and teammate Tiffany Mitchell on the chopping block.
While Cashel was featured on the former CBS reality show Love Island and had his ex-girlfriend on The Challenge spinoff with him, he said he didn’t have much connection with the others from his show.
He and Big Brother star Tiffany became random teammates in Episode 2, and despite a strong performance during the daily challenge, it wasn’t enough, as Tiffany had become a target for many of their castmates.
With Tiffany and Cashel coming from Big Brother and Love Island, they also had many other cast members from those shows there with them, but unfortunately, most of those people didn’t have their backs.
In particular, Cashel mentioned a “hard rift” between some of the Love Island stars, which may have played a part in the elimination situation.
He also shared that he felt “uncomfortable” because of how some of the Love Island women acted toward him.
Cashel comments about ‘hard rift’ amongst Love Islanders on Challenge spinoff
Two competitors get eliminated from CBS’ The Challenge: USA each week, a spinoff based on the MTV competition series. In Episode 2 of the spinoff, Cashel Barnett and Tiffany Mitchell were the latest to get sent home.
It seemed to be a blindside move, as Tiffany probably hadn’t felt that she would get sent in after speaking with Tyson Apostol, one-half of the daily challenge’s winning team.
During an exit interview for Rob Has a Podcast on YouTube (below), the hosts asked Cashel if he was surprised by getting thrown into elimination, especially since the power team featured another Love Islander, Justine Ndiba.
Cashel said he wasn’t surprised, as he didn’t expect any loyalty from most of the other people from his show. He explained that it made sense to him and suggested there was footage that would’ve better shown the split amongst Love Island stars on The Challenge: USA.
“Something that you also didn’t get to really see too much was that there was a hard rift- a certain divide between Love Island boys and Love Island girls. Javonny [Vega] seemed to be the only one who was safe in that regard, but me and Cinco [Holland], we were the ex-boyfriends who you know, ‘Oh, it’s so hard to be around them, and they just did us so dirty’ and blah blah blah blah blah,” Cashel said.
“Me and Kyra [Green] were actually totally fine living in there together, but every other Love Island girl was actually very rude to me, and it made me uncomfortable, honestly,” he shared.
The 30-year-old Cashel Barnett originally appeared in the first season of Love Island USA along with Kyra Green, who was his ex-girlfriend heading into The Challenge spinoff on CBS.
He said while on The Challenge: USA that most of the Love Island women didn’t do a very good job of trying to recruit him and Cinco for their cause because they “pretty much talked s**t” about them the entire time.
Tiffany’s flirty situation with Cinco also involved
While Episode 2 didn’t feature Cashel’s situation with the other Love Islanders much at all, Tiffany Mitchell’s flirty relationship in The Challenge: USA with Cinco Holland was a storyline.
The episode included scenes where Cinco’s ex, fellow Love Islander Cashay Proudfoot, seemed frustrated at being around Cinco while he was flirting with Tiffany. In addition, Cashay was shown talking to other cast members about how Tiffany was trying to get the Love Island guys under her control for the game.
Early scenes in Episode 2 also featured Survivor stars Shantel Smith and Desi Williams informing their allies about Tiffany’s relationship with Cinco before the show. Desi even mentioned that Tiffany and Cinco had “swapped DNA.”
All of that ultimately told the story of how Tiffany became a target for more than a few of her Challenge: USA castmates. She and Cashel ended up as the team that the daily challenge winners, Tyson and Justine, sent into elimination against Amazing Race stars James Wallington and Cayla Lee Platt.
In the end, it was Cashel doing his best to try to win the elimination for him and Tiffany, but the Amazing Race team was triumphant, sending their opponents home from the game.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.