Darrell Taylor recently returned to TV screens as an OG cast member in The Challenge: All Stars 2, his second appearance for the spinoff series.
The four-time champion is the only cast member who has won four consecutive Challenge seasons. He’s also the only All Stars 2 cast member to have also appeared on a regular season of the MTV show during the past year, with Double Agents.
He recently opened up about his experiences with both shows and suggested that cast members on the main show “try to be extra,” whereas the OGs aren’t doing all that and are “genuine.”
Darrell appeared on three Challenge shows in 2021
It’s clear that Darrell Taylor, who turned 42 earlier this month, is putting in the work when it comes to competing in The Challenge and helping to create memorable reality TV episodes.
He made his big return to MTV’s competitive series in December 2020 with The Challenge: Double Agents, his ninth regular-season appearance.
Along with Aneesa Ferreira and CT Tamburello, Darrell was amongst the oldest cast members competing. He advanced to Episode 14 of the season before getting eliminated by Cory Wharton.
However, Darrell also appeared as part of the new spinoff series, The Challenge: All Stars, which premiered on Paramount Plus this past April. He ended up as one of 12 finalists for the premiere season and finished as runner-up to the winner, Yes Duffy. As a side note, Johnny Bananas shared rumors that Yes may not be his biggest fan out there.
The Challenge: All Stars 2 premiered on Paramount Plus earlier this month, and Darrell was amongst returning OG cast members. Others returning from Season 1 included Derrick Kosinski, Jonna Mannion, Laterrian Wallace, Kendal Sheppard, and Nehemiah Clark.
That’s a lot of filming and competing to be involved in, but Darrell seems to enjoy being part of the show, and based on recent comments, he especially enjoys being in the All-Stars spinoff.
Darrell explains how All Stars differs from MTV show’s cast
During his recent appearance on Johnny Bananas’ Death, Taxes and Bananas podcast, Darrell spoke about the major differences between All Stars and MTV’s The Challenge. His reply was quite telling as it relates to the MTV show’s cast members.
“I would have to say All Stars; it feels like at home,” Darrell said during the podcast episode. “Everybody’s more mature like you said. Everybody has careers. Everybody’s already been down this road. They’ve already done their shows. They’re not looking to get on payroll, whereas on the flagship, you’ve got a lot of these kids from other different shows, and they wanna keep coming back, so they try to be extra.”
“I’ve never really had too many problems, but you can tell that they’re not genuinely being their selves. You know what I mean? So they’re trying to get on payroll, whereas on All Stars, everybody’s been on payroll. What you see is what you get,” Darrell shared during the podcast episode.
He went on to say that there are many “phonies and actors and imposters” on the flagship MTV show due to them trying to get called back to stay on the payroll.
Darrell suggested, “maybe I’m getting old,” because he said a sign of getting old is when you say, “They don’t make the music like they used to.”
Johnny Bananas also brought up how the landscape has changed, and “reality television was still in its infancy” when he and Darrell started on MTV. These days, there are tons of reality TV shows and people looking to build up social media followings and branch out.
Darrell agreed with Bananas and said he noticed the conversations on Double Agents were more about how many followers or Likes someone got, but on All Stars, the convos were about kids, family, and life experiences.
Times have definitely changed, which is probably why many fans are fully embracing the throwback series on Paramount Plus and yearning for MTV to recreate the glory days with the flagship show. That may never happen due to the changing landscape that Bananas mentioned, but bringing back some OGs here or there to the main show might help some.
The Challenge: All Stars 2 episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus. The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies airs on Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
Episodes of The Challenge are now streaming on Paramount+. Try it FREE!
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