‘The Challenge’: Corey Shares Where He Stands With Melissa, Big T After Season 39 Drama

The Challenge switched things up for its 39th season. For the most recent season, subtitled Battle for a New Champion, the show brought back competitors from seasons past who have yet to win a championship title. The season successfully crowned a new champ and established several dynamic personalities and storylines for Challenges to come. Corey Lay, who first appeared on , was one of those standouts. He not only showed what he could bring from a competitive standpoint but also found himself mixed up in some of the drama.

PopCulture.com got to chat with Corey about his experience on Battle for a New Champion, and he not only opened up about the whole Tula “Big T” Fazakerley and Melissa Reeves drama, but he also shared what he’s taking away from this season to become a better competitor going forward. 

One of the most dramatic moments from the season came when Corey revealed that he was sharing information that Melissa and Big T gave him with his alliance. Naturally, this drama was a major topic of conversation during the Season 39 reunion, as the three competitors were not able to make amends during filming. How do things stand now after the season and the subsequent reunion? According to Corey, “there is hope” regarding a path forward. 

“From my perspective, there’s no hate there, there’s no dislike,” Corey said. “I think I’m just unfortunately a little bit too defensive sometimes. I don’t let people… When I feel attacked, I think my first reaction is [to] put my guard up and to kind of attack back.”

He explained that after getting advice from champion Darrell Taylor, who urged him to really listen to what Melissa and Big T were saying, they were able to have a more productive conversation. The reality star continued to say that once he “started to listen to them more” he was able to better understand where they were coming from and, consequently, “acknowledge everything I did wrong.”

Fans got to see Corey hash out these issues with Big T and Melissa during the reunion. While both sides got fired up about what went down, there have been some viewers who have criticized how Corey responded to the two women, particularly during the first part of the reunion. The 12 Days of Christmas alum stressed that he does not agree with the “perception” that he only gets vocal when it comes to the female competitors. He explained that because of what he dealt with growing up as a queer, Black man, he knows what it means to be bullied and that he doesn’t want to make others feel that way. 

“I don’t ever want to be a bully because somebody who grew up as a little queer boy who often felt like he was bullied and being picked at, I have issues with people in the game sometimes, but I don’t think anyone’s a bad person,” Corey said. “I don’t want to put people down and I don’t want that narrative to go around about me. And I will say, regardless of your gender, if you yell at me, I’m probably going to yell at you back.”

He added, “Obviously, I turned on Big T and Melissa, and they were hurt, so they yelled at me and then I yelled back. In the reunion, I tried to be calm and then they were just still hurt and upset over the things that happened early in the season.” He added, “There are a lot of people who’ve been on the show who actually have said mean and hurtful things about other people to them, and that’s not me. That’s never going to be me. You’re never going to see me call anybody any name out of theirs. I don’t do insults like that and I never will.”

Considering these dramatic situations affected his place in the game, can fans expect to see Corey switch up his gameplay in the future? Well, the competitor certainly plans to approach the game, and his relationships within them, in a different way. He told PopCulture.com that he wants viewers, and other competitors, to “understand that I am a loyal person.” 

Going forward, Corey is going to be “a lot more selective” with his alliance, adding, “I don’t want to tell people I’m going to work with them and then have to turn on them because that’s not really who I am. I just got really desperate this season.”

Corey continued, “I think in the future, I’m going to make it very clear that I’m working with people that I want to work with based on my relationships with them. Just because somebody is Michelle’s number one, that doesn’t mean they’re going to get protection from me. And I think this time, I was trying to protect everybody that my friends were protecting and be part of this bigger group. And in the future, I’m going to keep it small.”