Cara Maria Sorbello said one of her main goals while living in The Challenge house for Battle of the Eras was to avoid Laurel Stucky.
The rival castmates joined the Season 40 cast as part of the Era 2 team, which also featured fellow show winners Johnny Bananas, Emily Schromm, Aviv Melmed, and Nehemiah Clark.
Viewers saw things get heated during the first half of the season, as Laurel and Cara got into an intense altercation with castmates nearby to prevent things from escalating.
According to Cara and castmates, other parts of the altercation, including Laurel crossing a line with her remarks, weren’t presented in the episode’s final footage.
The game eventually changed from teams to individuals, and viewers have seen Cara and Laurel not interacting.
Cara shared recent comments on the Zach Nichols Podcast about how she tried to stay away from Laurel but detailed her “strange” and “uncomfortable” behavior.
Cara described Laurel’s bizarre behavior around her
While talking with former castmate Zach Nichols on a New York edition of his podcast, Cara mentioned why she’s been seemingly quiet and out of the picture in recent Season 40 episodes.
According to the two-time Challenge winner, she moved over to the Era 4 side of the house for almost “the entire season” after her All Stars 4 and early Season 40 incidents with Laurel.
“Because of the way the house was structured, I just did not ever go to the side of Era 1 and Era 2 because Laurel was there,” she explained, adding, “She’s so strange in the way that I just wanted to stay away from her.”
Cara said she would attempt to converse with a castmate, and somehow, Laurel would always show up and insert herself into the conversation.
“She’ll just sit down on the couch and start talking to the person I’m talking to. I’m like, are you- I’ll just get up and leave,” Cara said, adding that the entire season was her trying to escape Laurel.
She called it “so uncomfortable and bizarre and just weird.”
“This whole season of me just casually being in the background is me just hiding because I’m like, ‘She’s just crazy,'” Cara shared.
She also told Zach she doesn’t want the word “sisters” used to associate her and Laurel ever again, even though they were once on relatively amicable terms during The Challenge.
Laurel’s behavior towards Season 40 castmate set Cara off
Cara also mentioned that it set her off seeing Laurel’s treatment of their castmate Michele Fitzgerald. Viewers saw Michele confront Laurel during an episode over what she’d done wrong.
Laurel talked about them never having a relationship or being friends. Cara was among the bystanders during that convo and offered her friendship to Michele.
According to Cara, she never witnessed Michele’s history with castmates in Season 39 to know what she might have done, but she got to know her through conversations during Season 40.
She explained that Michele is the type of person who doesn’t want to have bad vibes or negative energy with the people around her. However, that existed between Michele and Laurel.
Cara said it seemed that Laurel would offer Michele little “breadcrumbs” to reel her in, only to stab her again and hurt her.
In Episode 5, Laurel spoke in a confessional interview about Cara being around during Michele’s chat with Laurel. Interestingly, she claimed she was trying to avoid being around Cara.
“This conversation has nothing to do with Cara, and Cara needs to mind her business. This is Cara rallying people so that she can have people in her corner and people against me,” Laurel shared.
“I don’t respect that, and I don’t respect her. I’m doing everything I can to avoid being around her, and I feel like this is intentional on Cara’s part,” she said.
Halfway through the season, Cara, Laurel, and Michele are still part of the game and seem among potential women’s contenders for the Battle of the Eras final. However, the fact that Laurel has some dangerous allies and dislikes Cara and Michele could be problematic for them.
The Challenge: Battle of the Eras airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
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