The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies season brought many new competitors to the show, with international stars arriving as part of one of the most diverse casts in the show’s history.
That included Bettina Buchanan, who debuted on Sweden’s Paradise Hotel, and lasted past the halfway point of Season 37, showing her abilities in daily challenges and eliminations.
She won her first Challenge elimination alongside teammate Cory Wharton in Episode 9 but would be sent home by a fellow rookie several episodes after that.
Days after her elimination aired, she opened up on social media about having an abortion after one of the projects she was involved with, seeming to reveal she was pregnant while competing on The Challenge.
The Challenge 37 rookie opens up about abortion
In an Instagram post, Bettina Buchanan opened up with followers about what seems to be her situation while filming MTV’s The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies.
Her IG post started with a photo of herself and her cat with a prominent “WEEK15ISOKAY” hashtag over the image.
The 25-year-old reality TV star shared her story in Swedish in the IG caption, but another slide in her post gives the story in English.
In her remarks, Bettina mentions she has worked on various projects over the past six years, but “one of the last times it was different,” seeming to refer to The Challenge.
She also mentions becoming “more sensitive” than usual, “weaker and slower,” and gaining additional weight, despite being an “elite athlete.”
“Call me crazy, but Im always sure if I have to go home all of a sudden it’s for a reason,” Bettina shared.
Bettina reveals that she knew something was up, and so when she went home, she said she knew it was time for her to go.
“Because it turned out that I was in v. 15 when I got home, and that explained a lot. For me, it was obvious to have an abortion,” she shared with followers.
She shared that she’s thankful to live in Sweden where “it is a human right to have an abortion until v. 18.” Bettina then encourages those reading her story to continue to “push the boundaries” on this topic so that all women can have the right to have an abortion.
Based on her post, Bettina is among several other recent Challenge cast members who fans later learned were competing on the show while pregnant.
In the previous season of The Challenge, Double Agents cast member Natalie Anderson discovered she was pregnant while competing that season. She revealed after her elimination had aired that she suffered a miscarriage after she returned home.
On the season before that, Total Madness competitor Melissa Reeves reached the final but struggled with it physically and eventually decided to leave. She later revealed she realized she was pregnant while competing. In May 2020, she gave birth to a baby girl, Vienna, according to Us Weekly’s report.
Six cast members in all have been pregnant while on MTV’s show. Former Challenge competitors Gladys Sanabria, Robin Hibbard, and Faith Stowers also competed on the show while pregnant, per a trivia section on Melissa Reeves’ Challenge Wiki.
Bettina’s castmates said she seemed ‘defeated’ ahead of elimination
Bettina’s IG story above comes on the heels of her elimination in the recent Spies, Lies & Allies Episode 12.
During the episode, Bettina competed in a physical mission called Brush Contract involving competitors trying to run bags of cash to another side of a field.
Along the way, opponents were able to tackle competitors to try to wrestle the bags away from them, preventing them from completing the mission. Bettina was involved in several of those tackle moments, including getting kicked and jumped on by castmates.
Later in the episode, Bettina became emotional as she felt others in the house were speaking about her behind her back and going after her when she hadn’t done anything to them. She opened up to her former teammate, Cory Wharton, who showed his support for her ahead of possible elimination.
In a later club scene, castmate Amanda Garcia stirred things up between Emy Alupei and Bettina, prompting a verbal altercation between the two, which resulted in Bettina walking off and Emy blowing up.
Both Bettina and Emy spoke up at deliberation, each wanting The Agency to vote them into the elimination. The Agency ended up voting in Emy as a favor because she vowed to win and move to CT Tamburello’s team. Emy then chose to call out Bettina as her opponent.
The two women competed in an event called Bombs Away. That involved swinging a rope to guide a hanging “missile” towards targets up in the air ahead of them. The first to destroy five of their targets would win, while the losing competitor would go home.
While Emy seemed to pick up the event quickly, Bettina struggled, with castmates commenting that she seemed “defeated” or “deflated” before she went into the elimination.
“Bettina looks like she is over it, and I know that she has so much fire in her,” Big T Fazakerley said in a confessional.
Emy ultimately won the elimination event in a seemingly dominant fashion, with Bettina unable to destroy any targets.
However, Bettina’s recent reveal on social media seems to tell a much different story about why she may have been struggling with the competition, as she knew something was different with her athletic abilities during that time.
While she hasn’t revealed her intentions for the show, many fans are hopeful that Bettina will return to The Challenge and display more of what she is capable of as a strong contender.
The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
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It seemed obvious to her to have an abortion???
Seems to me, if you don’t want kids, birth control or condoms would seem obvious to you.