DC ExtraTime: Kailah and the Bird - A Transatlantic Perfect Match

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB
    Estimated Reading Time: 19 Mins

Instagram @SamRobertBird

Say whatever you can about this year of 2020, and you can think of all the twists & turns that it has brought us... and obviously there's been a lot of tough headlines to take and just as much negative news that we can consume in a whole decade filling up this first year of the third decade of this century. But when it comes to the world of MTV Reality that we cover on here, then it's been quite the first nine months.

When we look back on 2020 when we finally get to kick this year to the curb once the New Year's weekend rolls around in less than three months' time, MTV fans can look to how The Challenge is finally getting the much needed attention it deserves. The fact that the most recent season, Total Madness, did so well in giving us a weekly 90-minute reprieve from this imperfect world and garnered so much buzz speaks to how loyal you are to the fifth major pro sport. And now that the modern era of this show has joined a newly-expanded lineup of offerings on CBS All-Access and Pluto TV, more & more viewers are discovering this thing we call the fifth major pro sport.

The success of this franchise is in no small part due to the many people who have competed either in just one episode in their lone season, twenty of them as our now 7-time champion has, or the twenty-five that host TJ Lavin has been at the helm. And those who have been on The Challenge over the years have made plenty of headlines in all sorts as the media have joined with you the fans to rave about how good this show is. And we've made it a point here to mark every milestone they achieve when the cameras aren't rolling: pregnancies, cameos on other programs outside MTV, and most particularly proposals -- and there's been plenty of those in the past 12 months alone as those who we've enjoyed their company are now onto bigger & better things.

And just two weeks ago today came the latest one: a Florida girl who's been a key Challenge face the past few years, started out on The Real World and made her mark in one's celebrity territory became the latest to say "yes" to a proposal. The man who got down on one knee and who popped out an engagement ring in front of her while on a European vacation also appeared on MTV in the past year as part of a romance that was meant for the British tabloids surrounding its biggest reality series. And together, Kailah Casillas & Sam Bird are now officially A Transatlantic Perfect Match.

During Total Madness, someone who we kept an eye out for during the spring & summer was one who those of us who have followed MTV Reality for the past several years have known about. But if you were one of those casuals drawn into last year's drama surrounding a certain redhead teen idol, then the person of our focus here has garnered a bit more attention. Now thanks in part to becoming the latest of these personalities who've just made the next step in her life, people on both sides of the Atlantic know who she is - whether or not you're a fan of The Challenge or one of the world's most addictive reality formats.
   It wasn't that long ago that we were featuring Kailah getting to fangirl a then-emerging pop singer by the name of Halsey when she was with her Las Vegas castmates from Season 31 of The Real World back at the 2016 MTV Movie & TV Awards. As the popstar has seen her stock grow thanks to her "Closer" collaboration with The Chainsmokers and a romance with G-Eazy that inspired her breakout hit "Without Me," Kailah went on to become a staple of the fifth major pro sport, getting a taste of it in bungee jumping out of a hot air balloon to kick off RW's third venture out to Sin City as well as going on a hike with the roomies on the outskirts of the desert.

Kailah has done five of these Challenges, starting out as a promising rookie on Invasion of the Champions where she learned the hard way of how to play this game when, in the first Fortress elimination after the move into the Oasis, she lost out to Sylvia (who we just saw helping to find a new home for a KC couple on HGTV's House Hunters). But she truly came into her own during the $2.5 million trilogy that followed: her becoming a huge rival of Cara Maria and bringing their social media beef into the limelight made Kailah into a power player.
   That Dirty 30 season saw her get voted into two early eliminations after the opening Purge, and both time did she emerge out of the Presidio, though the first one was bittersweet as she faced the one who's been her closest ally in these shows, Jenna Compono. After going out in semifinal week in coming up short in the last pre-final elimination purge, Kailah had high hopes going into Vendettas, and once again she was one of the key figures as she made it into the final and showed her feistiness when she got sent home for a fight with (future mom) Melissa Reeves after the opening Final Reckoning purge. And oh, she was paired with a man who's been in the news lately, Drake Bell on Champs vs. Stars II.

But to another section of the broader pop culture audience, Kailah might be best known as the girl who ruled Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club. Shortly after what went down in Africa, she got a call from an emerging new beach resort in the paradise of Mykonos in Greece if they can utilize her talents of being a bartender both in Florida and then in Vegas. Soon enough, Kailah was on her way across the Atlantic to LiLo's club as one of two additional VIP's to join the original group of nine +1. But then, the Floridian grew skeptical of the tabloid favorite as, just a couple or so weeks into her European vacation, she would instantly turn on her and gained more fans even after Lindsay kicked her out.
   And then, there's Total Madness: her returning to The Challenge after taking the two War of the Worlds seasons off saw Kailah come in after taking that time off to work for Lindsay and a year wiser than she was when she left her last Challenge. On the competition front, because most of the attention was on most everyone else in the bunker, Kailah wasn't featured as much as she plowed along below the radar before being sent into the midseason female double elimination week, where she lost out to Big Brother 20 champ Kaycee. But other than forging a Holy Trilogy alliance with Jenna and Nany Gonzalez, there was one major & notable exception to Kailah not being given much face time...

While we were all busy with War of the Worlds 2 last year, filming of Total Madness took place at the same time in mid-autumn with absolutely no idea that it would be the only "sport" that would be on TV when it aired the following spring. It was shortly after that those in social media, forums and everyone else were buzzing about what had been happening in Prague: it came as a huge surprise that Kailah had been cheating on her boyfriend of three years, rapper & Vegas VIP Mikey P. (himself an alum of MTV's From G's to Gents in 2008 and a 2-time American Ninja Warrior contestant).
   The man who she cheated on was none other than British reality icon Stephen Bear, a two-series veteran of the UK version of MTV's global sensation Ex On The Beach, a Celebrity Big Brother winner and original host of the UK's Just Tattoo of Us (their iteration of How Far is Tattoo Far here). Their hookup in the cramped bathroom after all that temptation shocked all of us watching, while the unholy alliance of Johnny Bananas and Wes Bergmann decided to turn the Bear's room into a honeymoon suite - only to backfire in garnering Kailah's wrath.

Before making her Challenge return, on the inside you would think that Kailah & Mikey were picture perfect -- from meeting up with Floyd Mayweather and Kevin Hart, to forging friendships with reality stars like Scheana of Vanderpump Rules and joining Ronnie from Jersey Shore for his baby shower after he spent time with the trio the night of that infamous Instagram Live fight with baby mama Jen Harley. But what we never see is of what goes on off social media, and from all of what she's gotten to say on the matter that Kailah wasn't happy with where she was with Mikey, and it came as no surprise that she and Scheana got into a Twitter fight after the bombshell broke.
   And soon enough, Kailah decided that she would be better off being a single girl once again while briefly getting to know Bear's friends and family in where he lives in Northeast London, all as the tattoo her ex gave her of a briefcase on fire that she got on Tattoo Far last year is now in the process of being removed, and after everyone in the social sphere has had their chance to respond to her as did she, doing so in a Twitter thread after the episode aired...

 TWITTER  @kailah_casillas  

"I have been silent on purpose. I've declined a lot of interviews, but here’s what I have to say: I was in a relationship that I wasn’t happy in for a lot of reasons, bigger than you’ll ever know. What I did on 35 gave me an escape. Was it the right way? No. I should have dealt in a more respectful manner. I take 100% fault for everything and what I did was not right, actually, so fuckec up. But I'm human. And now, I am living the life I want. Afterward, I moved into my own apartment, I proved to myself I could be independent and I am right where I want to be. It didn’t play out in the best way, but I'm happy. And I’ve been on tv for 5 years straight. You all have seen me grow, make mistakes, be drunk and wild... but at the end of the day, I hope you can at least see the fact that I'm human. Love you all."

But it would be shortly after all of this that Kailah would find a serendipity to this situation, and her new perfect match in someone who also speaks with an English accent, who's also a musician like her ex, and who's also appeared on reality TV - only that this one has had two stints in reality dating, which brings us back to before Total Madness aired.

Cast of Love Island UK Series 4 at their
Christmas 2018 reunion (ITV Studios)

   Earlier this year, the fourth season of the American Ex On The Beach swapped hot sandy beaches for snow and the mountains when it went up to the Peak of Love in New Zealand. During the last Challenge offseason, we got reacquainted with Nicole Z., Jemmye & Laurel and Real World alum Marlon, as well as getting to know Adore of RuPaul's Drag Race, Canadian Bachelor Daniel and the love story of UK stars Callum Izzard & Georgia Steel, who got engaged on the finale but who would later amicably split up.
   Georgia's roots in reality TV trace back to her being part of the 2018 series of Love Island UK, which also gave us WOTW1 finalists Georgia Harrison and Theo Campbell as well as Islander & boxer Idris Virgo before the reality franchise made its American debut on CBS last year. As it was for those who crossed the pond to Team MTV, Georgia S. was not part of the first wave of islanders to move into the villa at the beginning of the summer, and saw her go on a date with one of her two exes that came to the Peak, West Midlander Niall Aslam, before he left the island after being in the first re-coupling ceremony. But it wasn't that long before the other ex would come walking in.

Sam was a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Norwich when he arrived in the Villa just shy of the summer's third week at Day 19. Sam's Love Island bio described him as one who's loyal, who has never cheated, and whose only girlfriend he's had moved out of country after four years. He saw himself as "hyperactive and loud," and who's not used to being up at the crack of dawn - something that is usually associated with those who get up early in his profession.
   When he came to Mallorca, he took a break from managing a local gym in East Anglia and being a personal trainer to a familiar face to UK reality fans in Georgia Toffolo, a 4-year cast member of docuseries Made in Chelsea and who won the 2017 UK series of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, along with show alum George Shelley of boy band Union J. When he moved in, Sam was more than ready to find love: "I'm ready to take a girl under my wing. I want a girl who’' got energy like me and loads of attitude. Some girls have said to me that I'm too pretty. The boys are going to be a little bit intimidated by me. When The Bird's got his eagle eye out no one is safe."

And just after he arrived, Sam chose islanders Rosie, Samira and Ellie B. to go on his first date, but a week later he would find himself in Casa Amor, Love Island's equivalent of a Challenge Redemption House but where in this secondary villa known in English as the "Love House" is where current Islanders are introduced to new singles. By the time Week 5's recoupling ceremony took place and where his stint in the house was on the line, Sam was with a new girl: Georgia S., starting when they went on that week's date and staying together at the following week's recoupling. But when the decided to remain in the villa apart and where choosing each other was not in the cards, they didn't pick another single, and they were on the next plane flight out at Day 47.
   Just after their return from Love Island, Sam moved in with Georgia over in Yorkshire and were together for three months, but after doing rounds with its daytime talk shows and events for its UK home ITV their ship would soon sink. In an October 2018 scoop by The Sun tabloid, Sam found some NSFW messages and a pic she had sent her ex-boyfriend while she was out too late while visiting her parents, an accusation Georgia has denied to this day. Their breakup made for a most contentious meeting when they and their fellow Series 4 Islanders exchanged swimwear for ugly sweaters and a Christmas-time reunion shortly after their split and where he got on her for not staying true to her word of being loyal. And then, he invaded the Peak of Love to once again get to down to what happened to their relationship, while also finding himself in a love square with Niall and two other reality dating alums: Tyranny of Are You The One? and Allie of Temptation Island.

Sam & Kailah's 1st pic together
(IG @SamRobertBird)

And it's him being part of the MTV family now that brings us to this very moment: just after what went down on Total Madness, Kailah had just settled back in where she grew up in South Florida, with Nany joining her after their stint in the Czech Republic. But while on a holiday (the Brits' term for a vacation) to America, Sam would start to see her to escape the cold back home to do DJ gigs in where it never snows in the Sunshine State - it was made possible by her slipping into his DM's after finding out that he was liking her posts.
   When Kailah and Sam met back in January, it was almost immediately that they clicked, and it was when they went to a Miami Heat game that they became official with the Insta caption, "Bringing the heat 🏀🔥". Since that time, Sam & Kailah have grown closer just as COVID has forced most of us to grow apart, and after numerous trips across the Atlantic to see each other - as well as joining Wes for his Friends & Benefits project in Kansas City, ultimately borders were closed off to contain the spread from the country most affected by corona. That has seen her be trapped overseas since orders were made by the American and British governments, but which has seen a relationship like hers be strengthened by being together at home during this quarantine.

View this post on Instagram

Bringing the heat 🏀🔥

A post shared by SAM BIRD (@samrobertbird) on Jan 20, 2020 at 4:15pm PST

While we've been following her progress on Total Madness here in America, Kailah & Sam have spent their summer 2020 on the European continent with ventures back to part of their reality journeys brought them: him to Mallorca, Spain and her to Greece and back home to Norwich doing ax throwing around doing YouTube videos on how they met while painting images of each other and going up against that ultimate of challenge opponents in a shark.

And as travel restrictions in some European nations have eased as local COVID cases have retreated, as the Brits marked the end of their summer with the late August Bank Holiday weekend Sam & Kailah ventured over to the western Greek island of Zákynthos Zakynthos, far from where she butted heads with LiLo. And on August 27th - more than eight months after they first locked eyes on one another in Florida, he decided to do something he didn't do with Georgia: pop the magic question.

View this post on Instagram

I still can’t believe this is real life 🥰🥂 @samrobertbird

A post shared by Kailah (@kailah_casillas) on Sep 3, 2020 at 12:17pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

I’m marrying my favorite person in the world @samrobertbird

A post shared by Kailah (@kailah_casillas) on Aug 27, 2020 at 10:47am PDT

View this post on Instagram

All my eggs in one basket.

A post shared by SAM BIRD (@samrobertbird) on Aug 28, 2020 at 1:51am PDT

That proposal around a bed of roses at sunset at a local hotel saw Sam & Kailah become the latest newly engaged couple in both Challenge Nation and in the Love Island universe, which has seen season 2 of the U.S. version in Las Vegas take center stage in what would've been the seventh series of the U.K. show. She follows in the lead of Jenna in becoming a fiance within the Holy Trinity just after Zach Nichols popped the question to her around the Rockefeller Christmas tree last year.
   With her captioning "I'm marrying my favorite person in the world" and him adding the familiar Love Island line, "All my eggs in one basket," word of this couple's engagement immediately made waves in two reality ecosystems on both sides of the Atlantic, as her fellow MTV'ers and his fellow Islanders sent their congrats on both Instagram and Twitter...

● @JustJem24: My heart is full💜. I love you both so much..

● @nanycarmen: WELCOME TO THE FAMILY @samrobertbird I LOVE YOU BOTH SO MUCH!!!!!! #FutureBird ❤️🙌🏽🤍

● @jennacompono: YASSSSS CONGRATS!!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Love you!!!

● @iamkamiam_: Yayyy congrats so happy for you both ❤️😘✨

● @kayleighmariemorrisx: Congratulations babeeeeeee♥️

● @tori_deal: Congrats Mamiiiiii😍

● @LadyFougere: Congratulations @kailah_casillas gorgeous ring!!

● @mar8e: !!!!!!! Congrats love birds!!!!!!!!!! 😭😭❤️❤️🙌🙌

● @imsarahrice: Omg congraTs you little cutie, you!!

● @aneesamtv: Congratulations!!!!! I’m so excited for you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

● @DJMelReeves: Congratulations ❤️

● @josh_martinez_: Congrats fam 👏🏽

● @b_lashess: Congrats😍💋💎

● @syl_marie_88: I loooove this! Congratulations Queen!

● @themarklong: ❤️❤️❤️

● @jenniferwestofficial: Wow!!! Congratulations Kailah and Sam!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🥰🥰🥰🥰

● @loveistheammo: Congratulations!!!!!!

● @ashleymariekelsey: Congratulations love!!!!! 💕💕💕💕

● @mikemgtv: OMG!!!!

● @violettaatteloiv: ❤️😻 Beautiful!

● @nehemiahlclark: Omg I can’t believe it😱. So happy for you and @samrobertbird. I’m smiling so hard right now!❤️❤️❤️

● @1ceejai: Congratulations babbyyyyygiiiiirrrllll!!!!😘😘❤️❤️❤️ So so so so so happy for you baby!! #IssaWife 😝😝😝🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🥰🥰🥰

● @gabi.greeneyes: Oh my gosh!!! Congratulations!!! I am so happy for you!!

● @scottofyager: MAZEL TOV!

● @itsall_abouttee: Congrats guys ! Congrats to you both 🙌🏽

● @kendalsheppard: Awww! Yay! Congratulations!!

● @juliannwilson: Omg!!! Congrats 🎊 😍😍😍💗💗🍾

● @itskimwebster: Wow so I’m guessing this trip to Greece is better than the last one? 😂 Congrats you two!!

● @laurelstucky: Oh my god!! Congrats to you guys!!!!!

● @kylecgshore: Absolutely buzzing for both of yous, Percy pigs for life @kailah_casillas 👀🤫

● @drerdz99: SCREAMING CONGRATULATIONS TO MY FAV @kailah_casillas - so happy for you!!! Invite me to the wedding

● @adamcollard: Buzzing for you both even if I did lose my 30 year old banker. Congrats to you both, I’ll start the stag do planning tonight 🤪🖤

● @_jackfowler_: Go on the boy!!

● @kazcrossley: Congrats Sam!!!!!!!! Omg so happy for you xxxx

● @joshdenzel: 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

● @kendallraeknight: Aww congrats!! 💍

● @meganbartonhanson_: Ahhh congrats you cuties ❤️❤️❤️

● @lauraanderson1x: Soooo happy for you 🙌🏼🙌🏼😘😘😘

● @jack_charlesf: How did it take me ages to notice this

● @charliebrake1: Jeeez Samuel! Congrats fella 👏🏼

● @jakequickenden14: Congrats bro

● @eyalbooker: Raaaahhhh Congrats you legend. More life 🙌💚

● @shelbytribble: Congrats 💍

● @gabbydawnallen: OMG 🔥🔥🔥🔥 YAYYYYY CONGRATS To you both 💥💥💥💥🔥❤️❤️❤️

● @tommybrady7: Congratulations guys ❤️

● @jack_charlesf: Love you x

● @victoria.winterford: Congrats !!!! 👏🏼

● @alexcannon: Rah congratulations my man! 🏆

● @mariofalcone: Congratulations bro ❤️

● @itskatiesalmon: Congratulations xx

● @urbanistalife: Congratulations!!!!!

● @isobelweekender: Congratulations to you both!😍

● @gatsby_liam: Yes brother 🔥

● @demsims: Congratulations sam!! ❤️❤️

IG @kailah_casillas

This represents the light at the end of the tunnel for the both of them after they went through separate but common bitter breakups: him as part of Britain's biggest reality show and in the public eye of the infamous red-top tabloids, and her in the system of the genre's longest-running competition series but who's forged a strong reputation since she first graced our screens in Vegas four years ago. And it was all made possible by them meeting through Instagram... and who says that you can't find true love by slipping into those direct messages on the app?
   In the replies below the pictures that announced their engagement he wrote to her, "Can’t wait for the rest of our life together 💙," while she wrote back to him in his caption, "this feels like a dream. love you so much ♥️." Now, Sam Bird and Kailah Casillas are a husband and bride to be and the latest reality crossover couple who are ready to tie the knot whenever this world gets back to normal...and we congratulate these two.

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