It may be Easter Sunday, but that hasn’t stopped a small war of words from erupting online involving a comment originally made by The Challenge’s Ashley “Millionaire” Mitchell and a reply from Lolo Jones.
The exchange arrived after Ashley suggested that entertainers are better TV than athletes on April 1, which prompted her Double Agents castmate, Olympic athlete Lolo Jones to fire back early morning on Easter Sunday.
That got Ashley’s fans and Challenge fans involved in trying to disprove Lolo’s argument about who is best suited for MTV’s reality competition series.
Lolo Jones fires back at Ashley Mitchell’s comment about The Challenge
The recent arrival of the spinoff show The Challenge: All Stars brought plenty of fan criticism towards the regular seasons of MTV’s show. On the spinoff, no professional athletes are competing for the prize money. It’s a collection of older competitors picked from MTV’s reality shows in the past, such as Road Rules and Real World to appear on The Challenge.
Realizing that the All Stars are entertainers and not athletes like MTV’s regular seasons bring on, Ashley Mitchell put out a tweet suggesting that it’s obvious who makes “better TV.”
“So entertainers make better TV than athletes…hmmm who would have guessed,” the two-time Challenge winner tweeted.
That didn’t sit well with her former rookie castmate on Double Agents, Lolo Jones, who fired back a reply dropping names of famous athletes who are now on TV or have done movies.
“Tell that to Lebron he just came out with a movie, JJ Watt and [Tim] Tebow, [Blake] Griffin, and the countless other athletes that have TV shows after their careers . How many challengers get picked up for anything after they are done? Pretty much none. After the challenge that’s it. Done,” Lolo replied.
Lolo’s response brought in plenty of fans to disagree and call her out about her opinion of The Challenge, with someone even reminding her that casting originally built the show with “people the average viewer can relate to.”
A few fans also replied to let Lolo know about the various competitors who went from The Challenge to entertainment projects, including TV and movie roles. That includes Johnny Bananas, who has been hosting his own shows on NBC, Mike “The Miz” Mizanin in WWE and reality TV, and comedian/podcaster Theo Von.
Ashley replies back to Lolo’s comment on Easter Sunday
Ashley apparently hadn’t realized that Lolo came at her with a reply to her original comment, but upon seeing all the fans’ comments, she learned what had happened. That prompted more replies from Ashley, but mostly towards her fans and followers.
“Well dang, on Easter?! I just noticed when I saw comments to her and was so confused?! Y’all know what I was trying to say but I guess that shoe fit bc she strapped it on tight,” Ashley tweeted on Sunday afternoon.
She went on to drop names of some of the Challenge stars including Karamo Brown, Johnny Bananas, The Miz, Devyn Simone, and Jamie Chung who all work in entertainment after appearing on MTV’s competition show.
Paulie Calafiore got his reality TV start on Big Brother and eventually transitioned to The Challenge. He originally dropped by Ashley’s post on April 1 to ask about “outliers” since he’s been training to compete in the Winter Olympics. That makes him the reverse of what Ashley is talking about, as he went from entertainment to athletics, for now.
Lolo’s reply to Ashley’s original comment about entertainers vs. athletes on TV comes after Lolo decided to exit her rookie season of The Challenge due to being unable to win daily missions or go into an elimination for her Gold Skull. The Skull was necessary to qualify to compete in host TJ Lavin’s final.
However, Lolo struggled to work effectively with her rookie teammate Nam Vo during the season, and since they couldn’t win a daily mission or gain house votes, neither could get into an elimination to earn their Skull.
Lolo was shown as she packed her things up to exit the show, telling her castmates it would be better for her to leave so she could train for the Olympics. Following her departure episode airing on MTV, she tweeted that production had forced her to quit the show and suggested a daily mission was rigged, helping a particular team win.
As of this report, Lolo is preparing for competition at the Winter Olympics set for 2022 in Beijing. Ashley may also be preparing for competition as one of the returning cast members for The Challenge Season 37.
The Challenge: Double Agents airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV. The Challenge: All Stars episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus.
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