‘The Challenge’: Jessica Shares the Real Story Behind Her Elimination on ‘Battle for a New Champion’

Season 39 of The Challenge, subtitled ‘Battle for a New Champion,’ premiered on Wednesday night and the show didn’t waste any time in getting right to the action. By the end of the premiere, The Challenge: Australia alum Jessica Brody was eliminated after she chose to go up against Tula “Big T” Fazakerley. The episode depicted the entire house voting for Jessica after she expressed her intentions to target some of the strong women on the cast, but as she explained to PopCulture.com, there was a lot more to the situation that fans didn’t get to see. According to Jessica, she ended up being voted into elimination after getting in the middle of some drama between Jay Starrett and Chauncey Palmer. 

While Jessica didn’t have nearly as many connections as others coming into the game, she did do a little bit of pre-gaming. That involved having a “four-hour” long conversation with Jay shortly before they left to compete. Once the game actually got underway, Jessica formed an alliance with Chauncey, who had expressed his intent to target Jay directly to him. When The Challenge: Australia player wasn’t entirely truthful about this piece of information when Jay asked if anyone was targeting him, she noted that he “turned the house against” her. 

She did add that she takes “the blame” since she wasn’t forthcoming about this information, adding, “I was coming for people, I’m not gonna lie.” Just as she teased, there was talk in the house that she was going to target some of the strong girls in the house, including Olivia Kaiser. Jessica mentioned that she only “insinuated” this to Jay and Callum Izzard, meaning that it was easy to deduce how this information got out given the connection between the Survivor alum and the ‘Ride or Dies’ women. In the end, she said that all of this drama did lead to the cast making their decision to vote her into elimination before the deliberation even took place, despite how it appeared in the episode. 

“Everybody except Horacio [Gutierrez] had told me 100% that they were voting for me before we went into the deliberation,” Jessica said. “I had no doubt in my mind that I was being put up. So I was just grasping at anything. That’s why you see me being like, ‘I don’t even want to win. I’m willing to help anyone else out.’ That wasn’t the truth. I was just trying to do whatever I could to stay because I knew at that point they were putting me in.”

Considering how things panned out for her this time around, what would her working relationships look like if she were to come back to The Challenge? Jessica did say that it would depend on who would be on the cast, as she does have relationships with other Challenge vets including Devin Walker, whom she had a brief romance with after her elimination. Due to all of these different relationships, Jessica teased that it could be “messy” if she were to return with the right group of people. Alas, only time will tell what happens in her Challenge future. 

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.