The Challenge: USA’s Luis Colón exclusively told Us Weekly that he doesn’t think he deserved to be on the receiving end of Josh Martinez’s wrath this season.
Luis, 36, became the fourth boot of season 2 during the Sunday, August 20, episode of the CBS reality series. Prior to Luis’ elimination, Josh, 29, publicly declared to the entire house that he was going after Luis and his fellow Green Team member Desi Williams.
“[The] thing is, green [team] walk around here and they smile and they keep quiet and they run into their rooms [and] hide behind their doors,” Josh said during the episode. “I can’t do this fake s—t, bruh. I’m not included in those rooms, they shuffle like rats. … Desi, I’m coming after you. Luis, I’m coming after you. That’s where the f—k I’m at.”
Luis, who was eliminated from the game after losing to Chris Underwood in the arena, told Us that Josh’s frustration should “definitely not” have been directed at him.
“Josh knows that that’s not my game. I come from [The] Amazing Race. This is really weird for me. … I’m not the one game planning here,” he said. Luis added that he tried to work with Josh “from the beginning” of the season, but found that Josh didn’t have his back in the game.
“Week one, my name was put in [for elimination] and I asked him for help: ‘Hey, dude, look, is there any way you could put in some girl names? You know, I need your help here.’ And he didn’t do that,” Luis explained. “And then he never spoke game with me. And I’m ready to work with him here, but he never gave me anything. So, guess what? I went to the other side.”
Although Luis said that he “love[s] Josh’s intensity” and thinks it makes for “great TV,” he didn’t want to reciprocate it. “I’m not gonna yell back. It’s not my style,” he said. “But hey, he chose that.”
Luis may have tried to avoid fights in the house, but that wasn’t the case for Challenge veteran Amanda Garcia, who was eliminated directly after Luis during Sunday’s episode. Amanda, 30, exchanged tense words with both Michele Fitzgerald and Tori Deal this season, both of whom she has competed with before.
Although Amanda and Tori, 30, briefly put their beef aside during episode 2 and seemed open to the possibility of working together, the MTV personalities had a blowup fight during episode 3 after Amanda’s vote helped send Tori into the arena to battle for her life in the game. (Tori ultimately beat Jonna Stephens (née Mannion) in the challenge and secured her safety.)
“Shame on me for believing that we could ever possibly work together,” Tori told Amanda after the elimination round.
Amanda then shot back: “Tori, I know you have a lot of fake friends, but I will never be one of them and you should have known that before the jump.”
Amanda and Tori’s feud made headlines last month before season 2 of The Challenge: USA had even premiered. After Tori shared a promo photo for the reality series via Instagram in which Amanda’s face was covered by a clown emoji, Amanda fired back via Twitter.
“Sorry guys I just got off work I didn’t realize that roided out monster was such a fan 😂 thanks for highlighting ME in your post loser hahahahaha,” Amanda wrote. In a series of subsequent tweets, she called Tori a “botched clout chaser” and a “steroid injecting prostitute.”
In response, Tori took to her Instagram Story to shut down Amanda’s claims.
“FYI … making lies about people doing illegal things is crossing a line,” she wrote. “There’s a difference between a clown face and defamation of character. This is called ‘libel’ and it’s illegal.”
The two women have disliked each other for years. Amanda called Tori out for being a fake friend during The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies in 2021. During the season reunion, Amanda called Tori a “chameleon” who is “friends with different people” every season.
“People can’t keep up with her and I don’t like someone that’s not consistently the same person every season,” she said of Tori at the time.
Amanda became the fifth boot of the season on Sunday after losing to Desi, 34, during the elimination round. After the episode aired, Amanda tweeted on Sunday, August 21: “Me and Luis got turnt at the airport and s—t talked everyone. Then ate McDonald’s like fat cows. IT WAS AWESOME. he’s my bro.”
The Challenge: USA airs on CBS Thursdays and Sundays at 10 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET, respectively.
