Due to the heavy presence of graphics and video, "Who Are These Newbies?" is best experienced on desktops and fast-performing mobile devices. Some videos embedded contain adult language & situations, parental guidance is suggested.
There was a time back many decades ago that the program schedules of TV networks based outside the United States were filled with imported shows and movies from America, the UK and languages related to the native tongue -- it's still the case if you fly up to Canada or watch those nighttime telenovelas on Univision. But starting in the '90s, overseas channels looked to something that MTV pioneered -- a genre it had the field to itself for years when The Real World premiered, but where the need was necessary to offer content that was locally produced, inexpensive to create than a scripted drama or comedy, and featured ordinary people who speak the same languages as those watching viewers at home.
Ever since, non-scripted television and the reality genre have taken over the global television landscape, with hundreds of formats being introduced, shopped around the planet and shown in dozens of nations from The Bachelor and The Voice to The Masked Singer and beyond. MTV, its once-again sibling CBS and channels related to them in the ViacomCBS company have long been leaders in the reality genre, and where some of its biggest franchises are shown on its numerous U.S. & overseas channels. And it's with this global takeover of the genre that offers the context to Part 2 of our traditional introduction to the rookie competitors of this season of The Challenge which we call, "Who Are These Newbies?".
Earlier, we focused on reality personalities familiar to the English-language speaking audience and to those in America, with two Survivor champions, the castaway who was blindsided by the show's first alum to compete on The Challenge, two from last year's Love Island in Las Vegas and two from the streaming universe. Now, the second installment of this primer on the Season 37 rookies heads across the Atlantic Ocean to introduce the first set of International Operatives... and after the break, we take a deep dive at those who come to us from foreign versions of MTV and CBS' biggest reality franchises.
UNITED KINGDOM
If there's one reason for The Challenge's expansion to a global franchise, it's because of what happened three years ago. Vendettas not only set the stage for MTV's parent Viacom to tie the knot again with CBS, it also brought over four alumni of global dating phenomenon Ex On The Beach to help usher its American debut that followed the season, and one cheeky Brit from Geordie Shore to bridge the return of the Jersey originals and the arrival of their Floribama cousins. Since then, many others from across the pond have competed on this show, and along with British-born dating show alumni Lauren and Kelz who we profiled earlier, two more from the United Kingdom also join this show... well, make that one more Brit and one guy who begins this portion from next door in Ireland.
HUGHIE MAUGHAN
🇮🇪 Big Brother UK + DWTS Ireland
Dublin, Ireland's Hughie Maughan was 21 years old when Hughie entered the 2016 BB UK house with Lateysha (who appeared on Wales-based show The Valleys and last year's Celeb Ex On The Beach there) and sixteen other houseguests who spent their summer in the voyeuristic fishbowl. According to his bio, he comes from a strict background of being an Irish Traveller - a locally-originated and usually nomadic ethnic group. He lived in various places around Ireland before moving in with family... and it was before he moved to the Big Brother house that he came out to them as a bisexual man.
On BB-UK17, Hugh found himself not moving into the main house like we're used to on our show, but in separate living quarters with other houseguests when he began -- and only moved into the main villa after it was flooded during a summer storm. He was put up for nomination four times - and like it was for U.S. Season 1 and other versions of the show, the public had their chance to have their say on who goes... and in every instance he saved from eviction. Hugh eventually made his way to the final night in the house (50 here instead of 100), and he finished in the runner-up spot, though he did forge a romance with housemate Ryan Ruckledge that lasted for several months after their season.
And Hughie also has something in common with last year's headliner of the Double Agents rookie class: the British Isles originated what we in America know as Dancing with the Stars, but in the UK is Strictly Come Dancing. Lolo Jones competed on Season 19 of Dancing with the Stars in 2014 fall after her first Winter Olympics as a bobsledder, but she was the first one eliminated... and in Hughie's case, he competed on Ireland's DWTS but also had the enigma of crashing out in week 1. And him being part of the LGBTQ+ community, he's only the second such member from the international challengers -- joining Big T's Shipwrecked castmate Sean Lineaker who was the first one eliminated on War of the Worlds 2.
PRISCILLA ANYABU
🇬🇧 Love Island UK Series 6
South Africa 2020
Both Challenge and Survivor fans can be uneasy about the presence of an outer house where those who get eliminated spend time there before competing to go back, but on Love Island they have their own secondary living quarters that fans love. Casa Amor is where the boys who reside in the main house go to for a few days to meet a set of new ladies, while the girls in the main house are joined by a bunch of new guys... it's here where we meet this Islander turned Challenger.
Priscilla Anyabu came to Love Island's South African escape from Battersea, a district of South West London in the borough of Wandsworth on the outskirts of city center. According to her bio, the 25-year-old was a model and operations manager who has Justin Timberlake as her celeb crush, and who describes herself as "Outgoing, kind and stylish." Some of those who saw her might've recognized the young lady: in addition to her modeling work, she did several pageants and won Miss Face of Africa, and also appeared in music videos by Fuse ODG, Wretch 32 and other artists in the Afrobeat genre.
Priscilla arrived once Casa Amor opened up for business on Day 23 -- week three of series 6, where as she entered she got to make some cocktails with her fellow new Islanders and three days later she entered the main villa and got coupled up with Mike. The remainder of her stay saw her win a challenge entitled "Rumpy Pumpy" as she stayed coupled with Mike as they went on one last date before being dumped from the island at the end of week 7, and they stayed together after leaving South Africa.
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CBS REALITY HITS
IN OTHER NATIONS
A story that garnered much attention and divided so many in the United Kingdom the past few years has been the controversial national referendum known simply as Brexit. But the power of competition sees both Britain and continental Europe compete on this Challenge, including one from the region and another who competed with the show's first non-American champion.
TRACY CANDELA
🇩🇪 Love Island Germany
Season 2 - 2018 WINNER
Tracy Candela came to the 2018 season of Love Island Germany (with the additional title of Heiße Flirts & wahre Liebe - German for Hot Flirts & True Love) from Konstanz at the edge of the Alps in southern Germany, where she went to college in as a law student. When she came to the show, she described herself as "spirited, crazy and spontaneous," and who brought to the villa her warm-hearted personality. She added, "I am spirited, but also very sensitive and emotional. I think I will stand out from others through my personality and my looks." She also happens to love Jason Derulo, too.
Tracy was among the group who entered the house from the outset with single Victor until the third recoupling ceremony in week 2, where she found her match in Marcellino. And they won Germany's vote in being declared winners of season 2 of Love Island -- thus, she's the first winner from any show of the Love Island franchise to be on The Challenge... all coming after much relationship drama herself.
BERNA CANBELDEK
🇩🇪 Survivor: Turkey
Berna Canbeldek is a native Turk having grown up in Bursa, but who moved with the rest of her family to Germany. At age 12, she began taking dance education to where she would eventually become a professional dancer and an educator in that profession. Berna would eventually expand her repertoire to also include acrobatics, music, riding and inline skating... and she would then appear on the country's own version of the global Got Talent franchise, not to mention in celeb boxing events.
But it's on Survivor Turkey that Berna would garner her greatest fame and notoriety: three times she has competed on the show on seasons 8, 9 and 12... and Turbo competed alongside her on all three of her seasons as well. One difference between it and our Survivor is that players can enter the competition at halfway though the season due to its much longer length of well over 100 days, rather than 39 as we're used to... but she didn't win any of those seasons and was medevac'd on the 2012 season.
In one of the clips below, one notable moment garnered plenty of discussion among Turkish TV fans -- but with a twist: in one of those earlier seasons, Berna got into a fight with one fellow castaway and was ejected from the competition, but the network airing the series at the time withheld showing that fight on an episode, and it was only after it was uncovered by those on the web did it circulate.
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THE SHOWS WE KNOW...
IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
As MTV marked its 40th birthday earlier this month, this MTV fan has grown up with the channel from just being a fan and a viewer to now covering many of its shows on this website. And from when I began DCBLOG in 2013, it has expanded from covering just The Challenge and Real World in our first full year of covering this beat to now just about everything else the channel offers on the reality slate... and that includes two of its biggest series - or at least cousins of those we cover here.
RENAN HELLEMANS
🇧🇪 Ex On The Beach Belgium
For its rookie entry to Spies, Lies & Allies, this Ex On The Beach version is actually a collaboration between Belgium's local MTV channel and the MTV Europe affiliate next door in the Netherlands. It also takes advantage of dialects of the Belgian, Dutch and a related language in Holland called Flemish -- and their version of EOTB is entitled, Double Dutch, just like that popular form of jump rope you likely performed after school with your friends when you were young.
One who appeared on two seasons of EOTB Double Dutch is Renan Hellemans, a 22-year-old from Antwerp - Belgium's second largest city behind Brussels and host city of the 1920 Olympic Games. When he introduced himself in one of the videos below, he claims that he has slept with nearly 70 women -- and you thought some of the other guys on this Challenge cast were that busy after hours.
With Nany describing him as a lookalike of Aladdin, no wonder why he is called a flirt and charismatic, and where when he was in Ibiza on a modeling assignment an elderly man came up to Renan and told him to be happy and to just be himself (to put shortly). And he has since followed in that advice... and on Double Dutch he got to fall in love aplenty.
GABO SZABO
🇭🇺 Warsaw Shore
Warsaw Shore is Poland's version of the Shore franchise having debuted in November 2013 following that year's Europe Music Awards within the Polish territory, and it has been filming its sixteenth season this summer to air later this year there. Like it was for Jersey after it debuted, Warsaw Shore has been the target of some controversy and has gotten a lot of heat from those in Poland for its depiction of young adults there, but since two WS alumni have become parents and another became a cage fighter.
Now, an alum of a version of the show not in the English language has made its way onto our shores and an MTV series on American television for the very first time. Gabo Szabo made his way from Hungary to Mielno in northern Poland for its twelfth series two years ago, being part of a group of six new roommates to take the place of two former cast members who left after its 11th season in 2018, and which included a former contestant on Poland's Next Top Model.
27-year-old Gabo first gained attention at a 2015 EDM music festival when a live camera caught up dancing shirtless with just red shorts on, and his dance moves went viral... enough for RTL to ask him to be part of a reality series bearing the name of Paramount Network's former iteration of Spike, which documented his journey to becoming a body builder. But MTV had other ideas for him: when moving into Warsaw Shore, "Pumped" Gabo would describe himself as the "Hungarian prince" because of the girls' attraction to him, as you can see below... he's also very serious about staying fit, too.
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Just ahead in the third & last part of Who Are These Newbies? - Spies, Lies & Allies: get ready to do some pronunciations and translations. We'll meet those from nations where English is not the most prominently spoken language, including the man who bears a facial resemblance to a 3-time champion, and the one who has something none of the other rookies, veterans or new gen players have: a million-plus Twitter following. Rejoin us when DCBLOG's Challenge rookie orientation returns...
- I AM DC
#DCBLOG
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