3 times The Challenge cut ties with contestants over racially charged comments

The Challenge, MTV's long-running competitive reality television show, has seen several controversies since its inception in 1998. The scandals surrounding the show have been of various offenses, and there have been offenses that promoted the MTV show to sever ties with the contestants.

Dee Nguyen, Georgia Harrison, and Camila Nakagawa are some names with whom the show is no longer in association due to their racially charged comments either while filming or on social media. Camila Nakagawa's comments not only made the fans uncomfortable but also prompted fellow contestant Leroy Garrett to quit the show.

The Challenge is currently on air with season 39 (Battle for a New Champion). Episodes of the same drop every Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.

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Blackface, anti-BLM tweets, and more haunt The Challenge

MTV's The Challenge has seen several controversial moments over the years. However, in some cases, the cast members have been removed from their respective seasons, never to be seen again.

The first person on the list is Camila Nakagawa, whose comments towards another cast member resulted in her removal from the show. While filming Dirty 30 in 2017, while under the influence, Camila started shouting at Leroy Garrett, calling him racist and inappropriate names.

The cast was discussing who to send into deliberation when Camila entered the room. Johnny Bananas noted that Leroy was in for a "sh*t storm" as the female cast member yelled at him. Leroy, however, tried disengaging, but Camila shocked everyone when she called him a "black m*therf*cking p*ssy."

"I don't know why my skin color is being brought into this. At this point, I'm starting to lose a lot of respect for the things that are coming out of her mouth," Leroy said in a confessional.

C.T. Tamburella told the cameras that nobody agreed with what The Challenge contestant said and called her "out of control." Cast member Jordon stepped in and told Camila it was over while Tony called her actions inappropriate. As she was walking out of the room, Johnny Bananas threw a pillow at her, and Camila, unaware of who threw it, started hitting Leroy with the thrown pillow. Eventually, the show's security team had to step in to remove her from the scene.

In 2020, the MTV show cut all ties with Dee Nguyen after her "offensive comments on the Black Lives Matter movement." The Challenge issued a statement about the same.

"As a result of Dee Nguyen's offensive comments on the Black Lives Matter movement, we have severed ties with her. Out of respect for our Challengers, we'll air our season as planned. We strongly condemn systemic racism and stand with those raising their voices against injustice."

The tweets have since been removed. The Challenge alum wrote on Twitter at the time that she didn't understand why people thought she was "anti BLM." She continued that she had been saying that since the day she lost her virginity.

However, that wasn't all, on Instagram, Dee Nguyen commented under a post about George Floyd's death, noting that "people die every f*cking day."

Georgia Harrison, a Love Island alum, competed in The Challenge War of the Worlds season 2. While she was filming for Ex on the Beach in 2019, pictures of the reality star in blackface started making the rounds.

Georgia received a lot of backlash, which prompted MTV to fire her. Harrison's representatives addressed the claims and called them "disgusting" in a statement to People Magazine. They further claimed that the picture was taken at a child's birthday party "years ago."

"The little boy whose birthday it was asked Georgia to have her face painted and he chose to paint it black and silver. At no point did Georgia at the time think it would be offensive. Of course now she understands the situation differently and would be horrified to know she’d upset people."

The Challenge is currently on air with season 39 (Battle for a New Champion). Episodes of the same drop every Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.