The Challenge: All Stars, the Paramount+ spinoff of the long-running MTV reality-competition series, has been a breakout hit for the relatively low-profile streaming platform since premiering last year, thanks to the show’s dedicated cult following and a charmingly aged cast of Real World and Road Rules personalities, mostly from the late ’90s and early aughts (with some younger faces sprinkled in). Today, the series returns for a third season to much hype surrounding the heavily requested recruitment of legendary cast members, like two-time winner Wes Bergman and three-time champion Jordan Wiseley—and possibly some other formidable veterans down the road.
Still working out the definition of “all-star”—the achievements among the cast are all over the place— this season requires that all cast members have previously competed in a “final,” the days-long, grueling challenge that determines the winner at the end of every season. (Although, fans on social media have already pointed out that Nia Moore was notably disqualified from Battle of the Exes II right before she could compete in one). Likewise, the premise—and all the rules and twists thrown in and removed over the course of the 10-week-long game—can be a little disorienting. Not to mention the players’ messy politics on top of it all.
Throughout all the chaos and unpredictability of the franchise, The Challenge—at least for the past 17 years—has maintained a grounding force in its admirably chill but no-nonsense host T.J. Lavin, who’s a crucial part of All Stars’ winning formula as one of the most heartwarming, nostalgic programs currently on television.
“It was pretty automatic,” Lavin tells The Daily Beast about joining the spinoff. “For years, Mark Long had been hitting me up. And he was like, ‘We’re going to get this thing on.’ And I was like, ‘All right, cool.’ I mean, this has been two or three years in the making [and] that this guy’s been tweeting about it and hitting me up. And so when it finally got the green light, I was like, ‘Dude, let’s do it.’”
Since taking over for Dave Mirra during The Gauntlet 2 in 2005, the prominent BMX rider has been a pleasant fixture not just on The Challenge but the once star-churning cable network, which now mostly recycles cast members of Jersey Shore for various projects in between Ridiculousness reruns.
As writer Clover Hope noted in a GQ profile last year, Lavin’s hosting style has always been “understated” but distinctly commanding. The extreme athlete isn’t exactly a drill sergeant, frequently joking with the cast and kindly commending their efforts when he feels they deserve it. (He famously loses his cool whenever anyone wipes out in an above-water challenge). If his role has one recurring bit, it’s that he notably hates quitters and has no problem telling contestants directly to their face how pathetic they are for leaving the show for whatever petty, usually pride-driven reason.
On All Stars though, Lavin’s disposition is noticeably more light and cheerful than on the regular MTV series, at least in its current, more tonally serious form. (In the latest season, Spies, Lies and Allies, he was referred to as the contestants’ “handler” instead of the host to go with the espionage theme and had a slightly more stern persona). Fans on social media have noticed the host being more conversational and eager to cheer on the older bunch as they try to prove their athleticism as opposed to the twentysomething influencers frolicking around on MTV. This distinction adds a level of warmness and a friendlier vibe to the spinoff.
“I can say that,” he reluctantly agrees when I ask if he feels more comfortable hosting All Stars than the regular series now.
“I mean, it’s like being with old friends,” he continues. “You’re probably a lot more comfortable than if you’re hanging out with all-new people on a corporate level. I mean, at some corporate board meeting, you’re not going to be as relaxed and as chill as if you’re hanging out with old friends, right?”
This metaphor might sound harsh to some of the MTV contestants who jokingly call T.J. a “father figure,” but one that feels obvious given how much the original show has transformed over the past five years, as casting has expanded to include non-MTV and international reality stars now that Real World and Road Rules have ostensibly been put out to pasture.
Correspondingly, the scale of the show has notably increased, featuring action movie-inspired stunts, drone cinematography and an excessive amount of pyrotechnics, which Lavin embraces despite divided reactions from fans.
“I think it’s better when you have bigger, fancier, crazier stunts and all that stuff,” Lavin says. “It’s natural to want to go back to the old-school. But if you go back to the old Challenges, like when Dave Mirra hosted it, for instance, they’re playing around on tricycles on a dock. It’s a joke. It’s embarrassing, you know what I mean?”
Lavin says he’s grateful people “actually care about the show” enough to critique it and speaks enthusiastically about the franchise’s new ventures, including a CBS version of The Challenge supposedly airing later this year, which Lavin just finished shooting and described as “really, really fun.” There’s also a slightly confusing international tournament taking place on multiple networks called The Challenge: War of the Worlds, not to be confused with the previous Challenge season titled War of the Worlds that’s in the works.
When I ask Lavin about his thoughts on The Challenge’s recent explosion in pop culture, he says he’s not surprised about it but that he thought it would “happen sooner.” The franchise, which debuted in 1998, has primarily been able to branch out from its cable home over the past couple of years thanks to a merger between Viacom and CBS in 2019. Paramount Global has since licensed a few early seasons to Netflix. And the show also attracted record-breaking viewership during its 35th season Total Madness, which aired at the start of the pandemic.
Likewise, it was a pleasure to discover the show’s new fanbase included some of the most illustrious names in showbiz: Rihanna and Drake, who social media users noticed following and communicating with some of the cast on Instagram. @ChampagnePapi himself even reached out to Lavin to let him know he was a supporter. According to Lavin, the two are still trying to arrange a hang in his hometown of Las Vegas.
“We haven’t hung out yet,” Lavin says casually. “It’s because I’ve been filming too much. He’s busy. I’m busy. I’m gone from Vegas more than I am here right now because it’s so many episodes, so many seasons.”
Struggling to find time for dinner with Drake in your own city–he predicts they’ll meet up when the rapper starts his Vegas residency—sounds like an exaggerated boast. But it’s simply the nature of Lavin’s jet-setting lifestyle as The Challenge’s official mascot, spending months at a time in Croatia, Turkey, Argentina, Panama, Thailand, and an array of other stunning, exotic locations where the show’s been filmed for almost two decades now.
Aside from the days Lavin is shooting the semiweekly challenges and the following elimination rounds, the gig seems just as lonely as it does luxurious. However, the 45-year-old, who has a wife and a daughter, assures me he isn’t holed up in his apartment alone, inviting a friend or family member to stay with him “every one or two weeks.” On his days off, while the cast is being filmed in their house and doing confessional interviews, he works out and explores whichever city they’re in.
Of course, he has to memorize a script—usually the rules of whatever wacky or death-defying challenge the game producers have concocted. He says he arrives on set two and half hours early while the structures and obstacles are still being set up to visualize the game. He also just doesn’t like wasting anyone else’s time.
“I don’t want to mess up because everyone else’s job is harder,” Lavin says. “If you have the easiest job on the crew, then you need to take it dead serious and really do a good job so that nobody’s waiting on you. That’s kind of how I look at it. Every day, no matter what, I make sure that I’m prepared and ready to go so that nobody’s waiting on me.”
It’s refreshing to hear that, although Lavin has been a mainstay of MTV for so long, he hasn’t become this domineering, Tom Cruise figure on set, firmly content in dipping in and out of his role as a host and trusting the producers’ vision. He says that aside from the producers occasionally asking for his two cents, he doesn’t seek to provide creative input when it comes to the show’s format, twists or themes. Overall, despite being known as the heart of the franchise, he seems to consider himself more of a kidney.
“I would say about 99 percent of it is [the producers],” he says. “Maybe one half of 1 percent is me.”
