‘The Challenge’: Jemmye Carroll Reveals the Real Reason She Left the Show — ‘This Is Not the Show I Signed up For’

‘The Challenge’ vet Jemmye Carroll has never been shy about sharing her opinion – and now she is revealing exactly why she left the original show and what is wrong with it today.

by Perry Carpenter

Published on March 26, 2022

3 min read

TL;DR:

The Challenge vet Jemmye Carroll said she was shifting her focus away from the show in April 2021.
She retured to compete in The Challenge: All Stars season 1.
Carroll recently revealed exactly why she left the OG version of the show and what is wrong with some of the contestants today.

The Challenge star Jemmye Carroll attends MTV's "The Challenge: Rivals II" Final Episode and Reunion Party at Chelsea Studio "B" on September 25, 2013 in New York City — Jemmye Carroll from MTV’s ‘The Challenge’ | Paul Zimmerman/WireImage

The Challenge star Jemmye Carroll left reality TV and her YouTube channel “indefinitely” when the pandemic hit two years ago. At the time, she said that her “focus had shifted in a new direction.” But now, she’s sharing the real reason why she decided to take a break.

‘The Challenge’ star said she was taking a one-year hiatus

Carroll made her reality TV debut in 2010 when she appeared on The Real World: New Orleans. Two years later, she showed up on The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons alongside a few of her former roommates.

Carroll competed in five more seasons of the reality competition series, and also appeared on Ex on the Beach: Peak of Love as Marlon Williams’ ex. During that time, she posted recap videos on her YouTube channel and shared details from behind-the-scenes.

But after competing on Final Reckoning, Carroll decided to take a break from both reality TV and YouTube. She told her social media followers that “where you invest your love, you invest your life.”

“Moving forward, I plan to center my life around what matters to me now more than ever, service,” Carroll said before taking a one-year break. It wasn’t until April 2021 that she decided to return to The Challenge. But instead of competing on the main series, she opted for the All Stars spinoff.

Jemmye Carroll reveals the real reason she left the MTV reality series

During a recent appearance on Mike Lewis’ podcast, Carroll opened up about her exit from the main Challenge series on MTV and shared her thoughts on the changes the show has made in recent years.

She said that she was “so pi**ed off” about the format of Final Reckoning — and that she and Jenna Compono were sent home immediately, despite “how good of a team we would have been personality-wise, storyline-wise, competitively” — that she knew right then she was “done with this show.”

“After Final Reckoning, I was like, ‘F*** this s***. This is not the show I signed up for [or] fell in love with as a child,’” she explained, per Heavy.

Are the newest cast members of ‘The Challenge’ too worried about their ‘brand’?

As for the latest crop of cast members that have made their way to The Challenge outside of the Real World/Road Rules universe, Carroll called them “f**king losers.” She called out people “in the middle” like Josh Martinez and Fessy Shafaat who should “be authentic, be yourselves.”

“People are trying to curate their personality for their brand instead of just showing up and being like, ‘Yo, this is who the f*** I am, and I’m just gonna be this person on TV, regardless,’” Carroll said.

Jemmye also called out The Challenge producers for the cast problems in recent seasons because she believes the root of the issue is “lazy casting and production.” She says the focus has become finding “hot” people on Instagram.

“It makes me sick as a fan because I was a fan of The Challenge before I was ever on Real World. So, to see the show get away from what it was supposed to be is disgusting,” Carroll concluded.