Exit Interview: Reilly Smedley on Rewriting Her ‘Big Brother’ Story and Breaking Down Her Elimination on ‘The Challenge 42’

Reilly Smedley has embraced the title of “Professional Second Boot,” but her placements hardly tell the full story. Across both Big Brother and The Challenge, she has emerged as a fearless competitor with sharp strategic instincts and a refusal to go quietly. Her latest run may have ended earlier than she envisioned, but Reilly left little doubt that she has all the makings of a future Challenge champion.

The Challenge 42: Cutthroat revives the beloved format, dividing twenty-four competitors into three teams as they vie for a share of the $500,000 prize. Entering a house filled with established veterans and alliances built over years, Reilly saw the season as an opportunity to learn from her Big Brother experience and reshape the way she approached the game. She formed meaningful relationships across team lines and built a compelling case for why keeping her strengthened the Gray Team, but a series of circumstances beyond her control ultimately sent her into elimination against Deb Chubb.

Pop Culturalist spoke with Reilly about returning to reality television with something to prove, the social game that remained largely unseen, and Keanu Soto’s efforts to protect her. She also broke down the pivotal mistakes and misunderstood rules that shifted the elimination, Cara Maria Sorbello’s heartfelt apology, and why she remains determined to return and finally rewrite the ending.

PC: I love your Instagram bio, “Professional Second Boot,” and the fact that you’re having so much fun with it. While competing on The Challenge, how much did wanting to make it further than you did on Big Brother weigh on you? Did you feel added pressure to change the outcome this time around?
Reilly: One hundred percent. Hopefully, that bio will say Challenge champ in the future. It’s only temporary. But what can you do other than have fun with it? Behind the scenes, I was devastated. It had been three years since my Big Brother experience, and I was so motivated. The Challenge and reality TV gods blessed me with another opportunity to rewrite that story, make it further, and show people what I’m made of.

We didn’t get to see enough of me on Big Brother. That was my first time doing anything like this, and I came in guns blazing and super hot out of the gate. I made enemies, and that sequence of events ultimately became my downfall. I know I’m capable of more than that. I overanalyzed my Big Brother experience to the point where it became painful. I know everything I did wrong, so when I came into The Challenge, I wanted to rewrite that story.

I walked into a house filled with these big, bad vets who have been doing this for years and all know one another. I knew it was going to be a very socially sticky situation. I wanted to weave myself into that web without showing my cards right away, and I think I was able to do that. It wasn’t shown in the episodes, but there were so many conversations and relationships that I built outside of my own team. I actually confided in people on other teams more than I did with some people on my own.

If things hadn’t shaken out the way they did with the team placements, the rules, and how voting worked during the dailies and nominations, I think my social game could have been the thing that saved me. That’s crazy because, on Big Brother, my social game was ultimately what tanked me. I definitely made it a priority to go further this time, so I’m devastated that I let it slip through my fingers. So many things had to happen for it to play out the way it did. I feel like I got whacked by the unfortunate stick again, which is a hard pill to swallow. But what can you do?

PC: As someone who watched you compete on Big Brother, I could see all the lessons you took from that experience and applied to The Challenge. It felt like you eased your way into the game this time, but the cards fell the way that they did. It also became clear that the best path to safety was serving as your team’s captain. You and Anna Leigh [Wilson] had a really good relationship, so once T.J. [Lavin] revealed that she could pass the captain role to someone else, were there any conversations about her potentially choosing you, or did everything happen too quickly?
Reilly: We didn’t know if or how the captain role was going to be passed on. It wasn’t until after the first elimination that we found out. At first, we were like, “Are the captains going to stay the same for the entire season? That’s not fair.” There was no real way to predict how any of it would shake out. In the heat of the moment, I was thinking, “Please pick me.” But why would she choose the rookie when she was trying to build relationships with vets who have been doing this forever?

It was similar to me being put into elimination over [Alexis] Lete. That was difficult because, after losing a male competitor, they weren’t going to listen to anything I said or consider what I could bring to the team. All they saw was that I was smaller than Lete and therefore believed I brought less value to the team. There were a lot of situations in that house where there was literally nothing I could do, and ultimately, they led to me being eliminated.

PC: When you realized your back was against the wall, you made the argument that the team should send in whoever had the best chance of winning and keeping the team together. Was that always how you planned to approach the votes, or was it more of a Hail Mary in that moment? Because it was a really compelling argument.
Reilly: It was. They didn’t show it in the edit, but I had conversations with Nelly [Thomas] and Brad [Fiorenza] where I said, “Let’s think about this strategically and look at the numbers.” I might not have bigger biceps than Lete, but let me tell you, I understand numbers and strategy.

No matter who went into that elimination, if we lost another player, we would be down two people while every other team was already bulldozing us. Why would we make the situation even worse for ourselves? I knew I had more to offer because The Challenge isn’t only physical. I made a comment that they didn’t include where I said, “What are we doing, pulling coconuts out of palm trees?” Just because I’m not as tall or strong as Lete doesn’t mean I don’t bring other skills to the table.

Lete is extremely physically capable, but we had no idea what The Challenge was going to throw at us. Having two fewer bodies when we were already at a disadvantage wasn’t going to help us. So why not send in our strongest soldier? The goal should have been to give our team the best chance of bringing someone back.

I felt disposable, and that was so frustrating. They were essentially telling me I was the most expendable person on the team because I wasn’t as big as the other option. Why wouldn’t we want to put Lete against Deb? That size difference was significant, and Lete had a better chance of coming back. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t seeing it from my perspective when the goal was supposed to be keeping our team together.

PC: That’s a really compelling argument, and to your point, there’s only so much they can show on television. Once it became clear that the decision was between you and Anna Leigh, did her existing relationship with Keanu make you feel like going into elimination was inevitable? Or did you have conversations with him and Adrienne [Naylor] about potentially keeping you out?
Reilly: Keanu tried. He tried so hard, and he didn’t even have to stick his neck out for me like that. I already knew his team wasn’t entirely comfortable with him because, for whatever reason, they didn’t like the way he was playing the game. I wasn’t really involved in any of that because they had their own issues going on.

The three of us had bonded before the show, even before we entered the house. We made a pinky promise that no matter how the game unfolded, we would look out for one another. But Anna Leigh and Keanu were each other’s number ones. They knew each other before the show, they both live in the Dallas area, and they had done events together. I was the third wheel on that tricycle.

With all that said, he genuinely tried to protect me. He tried to create a scenario where it would come down to Anna Leigh and Lete so that he could choose Lete to go in. He didn’t want to have to make that decision, so I don’t hold a grudge against him. He tried, but he was ultimately forced to choose. It sucked.

PC: Watching the elimination, it looked like you had built such a significant lead, but it wasn’t entirely clear where the momentum shifted. From your perspective, where did things start to go wrong? Was it difficult processing so many voices from the sidelines while trying to figure everything out?
Reilly: First, shout-out to Deb. She absolutely won that elimination, proved people wrong, and I love that for her. But I will say that I was winning. When you’re down there fighting for your life, you’re sweating and trying not to throw up or pass out. There’s so much going through your mind. You’re the motor, while the people watching are the voices of reason because they can see the puzzle more clearly.

Both the Gray and Blue teams were trying to help me. There were a lot of voices, but I was able to focus on a few of them, primarily Cara, Keanu, and sometimes Josh [Goldstein]. They were guiding me correctly up until a certain point, and I had the lead.

I almost blacked out during the elimination, so I had to watch it back once the episode premiered. That’s when I realized I had been instructed to put a purple ball on top of the blue sack, which was the wrong move. If I had relied on my own instincts in that moment, I would have recognized that it didn’t make sense. But when you’re under that much pressure, you listen to the people you know are trying to help you. That mistake ultimately gave Deb enough time to catch up.

There was also confusion surrounding the black sabotage ball. I was under the impression that every ball had to be dropped from the top of the structure. I didn’t realize you could run down the stairs and place the sabotage ball at the bottom of someone else’s stack. By the time I learned that, Deb had already given me her sabotage ball. Had I understood the rule, I could have placed mine beneath one of her completed stacks and forced her to climb roughly twenty more steps. That could have completely changed the outcome.

Yes, Cara gave me the wrong instruction, but I want to clear her name. She reached out afterward and said, “I never meant to do that. I love you. You deserve another chance. I misled you, and I feel awful about it.” I told her, “Dude, so many things had to happen for me to even end up there. Don’t blame yourself.”

I definitely had the lead, but not trusting my own instincts in that moment contributed to my downfall. It’s incredibly frustrating because I want to go back and do it again. I’m like, “Damn, that should have gone my way.”

To keep up with Reilly, follow her on Instagram. New episode of The Challenge 42: Cutthroat drop every Wednesday on Paramount+.