Dee Nguyen Fired From MTV's Challenge Over Offensive Tweets; Current Season Will Air as Planned

MTV has “severed ties” with The Challenge star Dee Nguyen over a pair of since-deleted tweets in which she made light of the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of George Floyd.

Nguyen on Saturday tweeted, “Idk why some of u think I’m anti BLM. I’ve been saying that since the day I lost my virginity.” She also commented on an Instagram post about Floyd, writing that “people die every f–king day,” according to Us Weekly.

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In response to these posts, MTV on Monday took to social media with an announcement of its own: “As a result of Dee Nguyen’s offensive comments on the Black Lives Matter movement, we have severed ties with her,” the MTV reality competition series announced via Twitter on Monday, June 8. “Out of respect for our Challengers, we’ll air our season as planned. We strongly condemn systemic racism and stand with those raising their voices against injustice.”

First introduced to TV audiences via the British reality hit Geordie Shore, Nguyen joined The Challenge franchise in 2019, competing in War of the Worlds and War of the Worlds 2.

UPDATE: Nguyen issued the following statement to Us Weekly on Wednesday, June 10:

“I want to sincerely apologize to my fellow cast members, the production crew at [Bunim-Murray] and the staff at MTV for my choice of words and actions in the most recent events. What was stated wasn’t meant to be hurtful or discriminatory in any matter. It was a knee jerk of a reaction and it’s certainly not the way that I feel nor what I meant.”

She continued, “I would love to take it back. … Racial intolerance is intolerable and unacceptable. Having had to deal with racism my entire life, ironically through all this, there is a warm feeling I have with the fact that humans are standing together to call out unacceptable comments and behaviors that in the past were rarely called on. Again, we are shown that you can be judged in a second on all social media platforms.”

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