The Challenge's Paulie Calafiore and Cara Maria Sorbello Lied About Breakup: 'We Had to Troll the Trolls'
Paulie Calafiore and Cara Maria Sorbello just “trolled the trolls.”
The reality TV couple revealed on Sorbello’s Instagram Live on Wednesday that they aren’t broken up after all, despite announcing on Monday that they were calling it quits.
In the video, Sorbello and Calafiore called their fake breakup announcement a “social experiment,” joking that a “weight” was now lifted off their shoulders.
Before explaining their joke, Sorbello said that the prank was not meant for “those who loved us, those who supported us… we thank you, we love you and we promise going forward, this will always be about you.”
“We had to troll the trolls a little bit, even if the trolls were some of our [The Challenge] castmates,” Calafiore said in the video. “We just wanted to bring light to the ‘cancel culture’ that exists nowadays. We want to start to make steps in the right direction of just being more positive online and trying to inspire other people to be more positive.”
The pair went on to explain that fans might think they know all of the ins and outs of their relationship, but really, they have “no idea.”
Calafiore added that he thinks people online “have stopped researching things and logic is lost and facts are lost.”
So moving forward, the couple is keeping the details of their relationship between them. “Nobody will know except us,” Calafiore said.
Calafiore first announced their “split” during an Instagram Live on Monday, saying the breakup after more than a year of dating was a “long time coming.”
“It’s been a long time coming but Cara and I have decided that it’s probably best that we go our separate ways and are friends,” he said. “We have the utmost respect and wish her all the best. I hope that you guys can be mindful that these are two people going through real emotions right now.”
In their video Wednesday, they joked back and forth about whether or not they were in an open relationship, just friends, or engaged — without revealing their true status.
“It’s not easy but sometimes people are better off as friends and that’s just how it is,” he said in the Monday video. “We will be okay and we still have each other’s back.”
RELATED: The Challenge‘s Cara Maria Sorbello Slams Paulie Calafiore for Two-Timing Her & Danielle Maltby
Calafiore, 30, and Sorbello, 32, first hooked up last year while they were filming The Challenge: Final Reckoning — and while he was still dating The Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise alumna Danielle Maltby. Though Calafiore and Maltby, 33, split after the cheating scandal was made public, they’d continued to see each other in 2018 while he pursued an “open relationship” with Sorbello.
In December, the love triangle came to a head when both women spoke out against Calafiore, claiming he was two-timing them. But a few months later, Calafiore and Sorbello got back together — and this time, Maltby was out of the picture.
In May, Calafiore and Sorbello told PEOPLE they were moving in together.
“I’m happy to say that we’ll be getting a place together in the near future,” he revealed. “But right now, we’re just enjoying each other’s time. We’re just enjoying life. We’ve definitely been through hell and back in and out of The Challenge both times around and it’s only a testament to the connection we have that we have only grown stronger and closer together through everything. It’s a really nasty world out there sometimes and we are standing the test of time.”
The Challenge: War of the Worlds 2 airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on MTV.
