While Brad Fiorenza is among the toughest competitors to appear in The Challenge, he admitted he wasn’t mentally checked in for All Stars 4.
The former MTV champion appeared in the spinoff for his third straight season, joining newcomers like Leroy Garrett, Adam Larson, and Brandon Nelson.
In his previous appearance, Brad was among the spinoff’s finalists with Mark Long, Nehemiah Clark, and men’s winner Wes Bergmann.
He also performed well during All Stars 2, with he and teammate Jodi Weatherton nearly reaching the final.
However, All Stars 4 wasn’t one of Brad’s better performances. He performed poorly during many daily challenges and surprisingly got eliminated by Adam relatively early in the season.
While on the Zach Nichols Podcast, he spoke about the “nightmare” experience and what else affected his performance during the competition show.
Brad shared why his All Stars 4 performance wasn’t at his usual level
Brad’s friend and former castmate, Zach Nichols, said he could tell Brad was “mentally checked out” during his All Stars 4 appearance. Brad agreed and elaborated on his situation going into the season.
“Specifically on Season 4, I just ended an almost decade-long nightmare experience in family court, and I feel bad for anybody that’s going through anything even remotely close to what I experienced,” he shared.
He said while filming, he was dealing with the time difference and making calls “at like 2 a.m.” local time to his attorney “with bad service in the middle of the night.”
Brad said that consumed his time there while others might have been “sleeping, unwinding, or enjoying their time together.”
“I spent a lot of nights staring at the ceiling, thinking about the personal issues I had going on, and I didn’t realize how much that was going to affect my game,” Brad said.
In addition to the family court situation, he shared that he’d just ended a relationship before going to the show for filming.
“I thought I was going to do well. I thought I was going to do great work. I did come out of a rough breakup right before that,” he shared.
Brad previously mentioned the breakup in a May 2024 interview, though he didn’t elaborate on the family court situation during the interview.
He was formerly married to his Challenge castmate, Tori Hall Gwinn. According to US Weekly, the couple has two children: Chase Fiorenza, 9, and John Brady, who turns 14 in early August. Tori has since remarried.
While on Zach’s podcast, Zach spoke about how many parents who go on The Challenge realize that as soon as they leave the show, they’ll get to see their kids.
“You don’t even know the next time you’re gonna get to see them,” he said of Brad’s situation.
Brad compared going on All Stars 4 with these personal issues to what it might feel like to get punched repeatedly by boxing legend Mike Tyson.
“I had so many mistakes [during All Stars 4] that I was thinking, ‘What is going on here?'” Brad said.
Brad is seeking redemption with Season 40
Before Brad’s All Stars 4 episodes aired on Paramount+, viewers saw him return on MTV’s The Challenge: Battle For a New Champion. Brad appeared as one of 10 former winners, selected as a mercenary to battle one of the main cast members in an elimination event.
He ended up going against former Big Brother star Kyland Young in an event that involved retrieving exercise balls and transporting them to the top of a structure before depositing them into a tube.
Brad also seemed unprepared in that event, with the newcomer picking up an impressive win over The Challenge OG. If Brad had won, he would’ve taken home $10,000 of the Season 39’s cast money. Instead, Kyland kept it in the cast’s prize purse and remained part of the show.
However, Brad will have another chance to show his capabilities when The Challenge returns with Season 40. He’ll appear in a Battle of the Eras-themed season and represent the OGs of The Challenge on Era 1.
The team also includes other MTV winners, including CT Tamburello, Mark Long, Derrick Kosinski, Rachel Robinson, and Darrell Taylor.
Brad brings his experience of a 6-6 elimination record, four finals appearances, and a Cutthroat win to the show. In addition, he has 41 daily challenge wins, which shows how much of a beast he is when mentally checked in.
The Challenge: Battle of the Eras premieres Wednesday, August 14 at 8/7c on MTV.
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