‘The Challenge’: Chauncey Shares Where He Stands With ‘Ride or Dies’ Alliance Post-Elimination

This season of The Challenge, subtitled Battle for a New Champion, features competitors from all across the world. Even though competitors from the past few seasons are vying for their chance at a championship, cast members from the previous season, Ride or Dies, make up a good majority. Still, being a part of the Season 38 group wasn’t enough to keep Chauncey Palmer out of elimination, and he ended up going home after losing to James Locke, whom he called out. After everything was all said and done, Chauncey spoke with PopCulture.com to explain the circumstances that led to him going into elimination and give his take on where he stands with his fellow Ride or Dies competitors going forward.

Heading into the season, Chauncey wasn’t entirely sure where he stood with the rest of the Ride or Dies crew. He did admit to telling Jay Starrett that he “didn’t trust” him, but he did have a conversation with the group when he got in the house and expressed his intention to work with them. Although, he said that he told them he “didn’t want to be at the bottom of their list,” which seemed to end up happening anyway. Chauncey said that he had a “feeling” that they were going to end up using him “for a number.”

While they all agreed to work together, the alliance still ended up voting for Chauncey to go into elimination. They noted that they did so in part after watching his performance in the daily challenge, but Chauncey is still unsure exactly why they decided to go that route and said that it seemed to come down to him being the “easy vote.” However, he didn’t win those competitors over during the deliberation, which he admitted. 

“In the beginning [of the deliberation], when I first thought about it was such a smart idea that it just started going downhill very fast. And once I was on that train, I just had to keep going,” Chauncey said. “But with [the competitors from Season 38], I didn’t make any deals with anybody or anything. And for some reason, Jay and Michele [Fitzgerald] still think I made a deal with Jordan [Wiseley], even though at the reunion on Season 38, Jordan even said himself that we didn’t make a deal. We were literally just handshaking, dapping each other up. So I feel like I never made any deals, never did anybody wrong.”

Despite the strife with the Ride or Dies alliance, Chauncey chose to go up against James. Even though he lost in a tight battle, his decision to choose James is one that he’s still okay with today. After Battle for a New Champion, how does Chauncey see things going if he were to be on another season with this group of competitors? He said that he’s in a good place with Ravyn Rochelle, Moriah Jadea, and even Nurys Mateo, whom he got to know better after having lengthy conversations in the house. But, when it comes to the others, he’s going to have to wait and see. He said, referencing his relationship with champion Amber Borzotra, “If Amber’s there, it might be a little better for me. If Amber’s not there, and it’s just me. Might have some trouble again.”

The Challenge: Battle for a New Champion airs on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET on MTV. Stay tuned to PopCulture.com for Challenge coverage all throughout Season 39.