Veronica Portillo rose to fame on MTV’s Road Rules and The Challenge with some memorable moments, including her heated altercations and a terrifying near-death experience during a daily challenge.
While fans rarely mention her amongst the show’s all-time greats, she’s a three-time winner, collecting victories in her first season, Challenge 2000, and two later seasons, The Gauntlet and The Inferno.
Viewers have seen her return multiple times in recent editions of The Challenge, including MTV’s Ride or Dies and All Stars Rivals.
While she couldn’t effectively use her strategies during Ride or Dies as Darrell Taylor’s teammate, she’s doing an impressive job so far on Rivals.
Her ability to play the game stands out despite potentially lacking the skills to win physical daily challenges or eliminations. Her former castmate, Wes Bergmann, believes Veronica and several castmates deserve “hazard pay.”
Another former castmate recently indicated that Veronica has no chance of winning The Challenge again but mentioned another show she could win.
Veronica will never win, according to her former castmate
During the Zach Nichols Podcast, Zach’s co-host, Pierre Bacall, gave Veronica flowers for her win alongside Katie Cooley in Episode 7 of All Stars Rivals.
“Listen, to everybody out there, Veronica is an extremely valuable part to the show, but I would put everything on the fact she’s never gonna win another final,” Zach said.
“It doesn’t matter what you give her. She will never win another final,” he added.
Zach, who previously won with his Real World: San Diego castmates on The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons, said he believes Veronica can win The Traitors if she appears on it.
However, he reiterated that she won’t win All Stars or the regular version of The Challenge on MTV. Zach’s podcast remarks also appeared in an Instagram video post.
They last appeared as castmates on MTV’s Final Reckoning, where Zach teamed up with Amanda Garcia and Veronica teamed with Chris “CT” Tamburello.
Zach previously received backlash for body shaming the Rivals star
It’s not the first time Zach has commented about Veronica’s performance on All Stars Rivals. In another episode of Zach’s podcast last month, he and his co-host joked about Veronica’s entrance during All Stars Rivals.
In the first episode, viewers saw most cast members learn which castmate would be their teammate. However, Katie did not have a partner at the start.
Host TJ Lavin told Katie she needed a partner for the first daily challenge, and then he called her partner out. Veronica jogged through a field in a zig-zag pattern for her entrance.
“Looked like she was gonna tip and roll over,” Zach said, as his co-host chuckled.
“She was winded,” his co-host joked, calling her a Teletubby.
“She was like, ‘Wait, how far do I have to run?'” Zach added.
As Monsters and Critics reported, Tina Barta defended Veronica and blasted Zach for taking unnecessary “digs” at her friend as a “clickbait” strategy for his podcast.
In All Stars Rivals Episode 7, viewers saw Katie and Veronica win a daily challenge, which saved them from possibly going into elimination and gave them the power to throw one of their opposing teams in.
The Challenge: All Stars Rivals airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
Episodes of The Challenge are now streaming on Paramount+. Try it FREE!
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