Many of The Challenge fans have criticized which cast members appear in the All Stars spinoff, and that’s become a more immense contention with All Stars Rivals.
The fifth season of MTV’s spinoff show featured cast members paired with castmates with whom they had a feud or rivalry.
It also is the first season of the spinoff to feature cast members who weren’t only originally from MTV reality TV shows.
Big Brother stars Amber Borzotra and Faysal “Fessy” Shafaat, international Survivor star Turabi “Turbo” Camkiran, and 12 Dates of Christmas’s Corey Lay are competing.
Amber and Turbo are former winners on MTV’s The Challenge, while Fessy is a multi-time finalist.
Corey reached the final of Battle For a New Champion, which was only his second MTV season. He recently defended his participation in All Stars despite his limited history on The Challenge.
Corey addresses fans claiming he’s not an All Star
The Challenge: All Stars spinoff initially featured OG cast members who appeared on MTV’s Real World, Road Rules, and Fresh Meat in the first several seasons. These included many of MTV’s early stars, such as Mark Long, Aneesa Ferreira, Darrell Taylor, and Trishelle Canatella.
Since that spinoff, the cast of All Stars has grown to include more recent reality TV stars. Among them is Corey Lay, who had only done two seasons of MTV’s The Challenge before going on All Stars.
On the Zach Nichols Podcast, he shared why he’s on the show and told his critics to direct their anger elsewhere.
“Like you said, we don’t make the rules because it’s also the same thing with All Stars,” Corey told Zach in an Instagram clip from the podcast.
“They called me. They cast me. Obviously, I don’t know if I’m an All Star, but yes, I am because I was on the show,” he said.
“There are people who are so mad at me. I didn’t create this game. I didn’t call myself. I didn’t cast myself. I got an opportunity, and I seized it,” Corey explained.
He said those criticizing him should be mad at production or the show’s format, but not him for participating after getting a call. He also suggested he never knows if that might be his last call for that show and that All Stars is a lot of fun to participate in.
Corey said castmates thanked him for calling out their Rivals castmate
In the most recent episode of All Stars Rivals, Corey and his teammate, Tula “Big T” Fazakerley, went home after losing an elimination to Ashley Kelsey and Dario Medrano.
The daily challenge winners, Steve Meinke and Adam Larson, sent Big T and Corey to the elimination. In a previous episode, viewers saw Cory and Adam clash during the cast’s nominations meeting.
It carried over to an online spat on X, with Corey sharing messages that Adam sent to him or a group regarding things he may have said that made it into the final episodes.
In another clip from the Zach Nichols Podcast, Corey further addressed his castmate, calling him a “f***ing a*****e.”
“Do you know how many other castmates DM’d me and were like, ‘Thank you for calling Adam out. He’s a d**k,'” Corey said.
He mentioned that Adam had tweeted something at him at around 7 a.m. on a Friday, two days after a Rivals episode aired, and Corey wondered what he was doing.
“It’s like, ‘What are you doing? You’re like 60 years old,'” Corey said about Adam attempting to start a feud with him on X.
They previously had several exchanges on the platform, with Corey sharing various messages that Adam sent him about things he said on the show, and that was all for entertainment. Corey called him out with the X posts, claiming he was “fake and phony.”
However, those are now gone. As of this writing, Corey’s X bio states, “I don’t use this app anymore.” He also removed all his previous posts from his X page, including sharing Adam’s messages and calling him out.
The Challenge: All Stars Rivals airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
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