‘Big Brother’ Star Claps Back at Fan Shaming Her for Returning to Hooters Job

Big Brother and The Challenge star Alyssa Lopez immediately shut down critics after being shaded for returning to her job at Hooters. The Big Brother Season 23 player responded to a Twitter user Sunday who wrote that a “certain person” was back working at the restaurant, tagging her season of the CBS competition show and adding a laughing emoji. 

The 26-year-old then retweeted the message with an addition of her own. “I’m confused why you think I should be embarrassed by this?” Lopez wrote. “To be able to pay my rent from 2 shifts at Hooters is amazing!” She continued, “So many reality tv stars have actual jobs. We are normal human beings. I’m just real enough to show it. Come in my next shift I’II buy you a shot.”

Lopez has long been proud of her work at the chain and is even featured on a Hooters billboard in south Florida. She’s since gone on to have a successful run on Big Brother, where she placed seventh on her season, and on The Challenge: USA, where she became the last player to be eliminated before the final.

“Going in [to Big Brother], I was open to anything,” she told Us Weekly in July. “And I think that’s what messed me up a lot too. I wasn’t going in [where] my only priority was winning. My priority was have fun too.” She continued in reference to her short-lived showmance with ex Christian Birkenberger, “I feel like The Challenge is gonna be a totally different Alyssa people are gonna see, where nonstop my brain was moving. And the only thing my brain was thinking about was the game.”

Appearing alongside five other people from Big Brother Season 23 Xavier Prather, Azah Awasum, Derek Xiao, Kyland Young and Tiffany Mitchell was both a benefit and an obstacle. “It’s a weird balance going in because you have these friendships and these connections, and you were also just lied to by them just six months ago,” she admitted. “… It was a very weird feeling having your best friends there but also your best friends who just lied to you. You don’t want to get got again.”