As viewers watched The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies Episode 14, a surprising exit arrived more than halfway through the episode.
Two-time winner Ashley “Millionaire” Mitchell was suddenly not in a scene with the rest of her team, with even some of her castmates seeming puzzled by her absence.
Host TJ Lavin described it as a “deactivation” with little explanation beyond saying she broke the rules.
So why did Ashley Mitchell leave The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies? Here’s what online speculation says and Ashley’s response.
Some spoilers are in this report for events that happened during the Spies, Lies & Allies episode.
Ashley disappears during Season 37, Episode 14
In Season 37, Episode 14, the agents competed in a mission called Submerged, and surprisingly, the Sapphire team looked strong after the Emerald team struggled. Ultimately, Sapphire would capture the big win, ending Emerald’s reign as domination daily challenge winners.
The Sapphire team consisted of Logan Sampedro, Emy Alupei, CT Tamburello, and Ashley Mitchell. They were all safe from elimination with their win and would get to send in another competitor later.
Ashley appeared in scenes after the daily mission, including one at the club where she discussed Amanda’s next move in the game.
Soon after, the agents went to the nomination meeting, but as Sapphire team took their seats at the head of the meeting, Ashley was noticeably absent.
Nany Gonzalez said in a confessional that three of the four members of Sapphire walked in, but she didn’t know what was going on with Ashley.
Once everyone got to The Lair for the elimination event, host TJ Lavin addressed the topic of their missing castmate.
“Ashley has broken one of our rules, and because of that, Ashley is no longer able to stay in the game. She has been deactivated. She is no longer able to continue in this game,” TJ informed the cast.
Why did Ashley Mitchell leave The Challenge?
With spoilers arriving during the show’s filming, there were already rumors that Ashley Mitchell had to leave The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies season. At the time, speculation arrived that Ashley got into a verbal altercation with castmate Josh Martinez.
A recent tweet from Challenge insider @GamerVev on Twitter provides some possible further insight into what happened.
Based on details in the tweet, it’s rumored Ashley said something to the effect of “everyone knows you’re gay” to Josh during an argument. Whatever it was that happened wasn’t present in the episode footage, though.
Ashley’s rumored remarks were enough for those in charge of The Challenge to decide to kick her off the show. That later allowed Big T Fazakerley, who lost in the Episode 14 elimination, to get to return to the game.
Ashley took to Twitter during the airing of the episode to react to her exit from Spies, Lies & Allies,
“Rules are rules and I respect @mtv and TJs call. The best apology is changed behavior. See you next time @challenge,” Ashley wrote in a tweet.
Ashley is the sixth member to be deactivated during Spies, Lies & Allies and the third to leave with no explanation. In the first two episodes, rookie Lauren Coogan and Nam Vo had to leave without explanation for their deactivations.
In other episodes, viewers saw rookie Tommy Sheehan and Aneesa Ferreira injured during daily challenges, resulting in medical disqualifications.
A huge blowup inside Challenge headquarters featured Fessy Shafaat making physical contact with castmate Josh Martinez several episodes later. That resulted in Fessy getting kicked off for the season.
As of this report, MTV has given no further explanation for why Ashley Mitchell had to leave The Challenge. However, she wasn’t entirely edited out of the episode, which may indicate she has a strong chance to return.
The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
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