‘Big Brother’ Legend Reveals She Turned Down ‘The Challenge: CBS’

CBS is set to air a new competition series this summer — The Challenge: CBS. However, one Big Brother legend won’t be taking part. On her Diary Room Open Mic podcast with fellow Big Brother player McCrae Olson, Janelle Pierzina opened up about how she turned The Challenge: CBS down. 

The conversation began as the duo spoke about the Real World and MTV’s The Challenge. Janelle said that fans have been especially fond of The Challenge: All Stars on Paramount+, which brought back “OG” competitors. She went on to say that she and many other Big Brother players thought that this was the route that they were going to take with The Challenge: CBS and that they would be bringing back houseguests from earlier seasons. However, Janelle said, with a laugh, that “things changed when pretty much everyone said no.” She went on to say that they had to “pivot” on the direction of the show and that it was once “looking really good.”

Janelle said that she originally told everyone that she was going to do the show. She added that she later declined to do The Challenge: CBS after it experienced production delays. The former Big Brother player noted that many of the “OG” competitors from the show who they contacted have careers and children and aren’t able to take tie away from their lives to be on the show. She also cited her own lingering health issues she’s been dealing with after previously contracting COVID-19. Still, Janelle teased that there will be plenty of Big Brother, Survivor and Love Island personalities who want to take on the new reality TV adventure. 

The Challenge: CBS was announced by Paramount in February. While they didn’t share too many details about the series, including the cast, they did share that former stars from Big Brother, Love Island, The Amazing Race, and Survivor would compete on it. The series is expected to premiere this summer. Although, an exact release date has not yet been revealed. Once a winner from The Challenge: CBS is crowned, they will take on others from around the world in yet another series titled The Challenge: War of the Worlds. Paramount will soon launch versions of The Challenge in the United Kingdom, Australia and Argentina. The winners from each of the four shows will then face one another to see who is the best in the world.