Laurel Stucky and Cara Maria Sorbello’s feud reared its ugly head yet again in Episode 5 of “The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras.”
In the episode titled “An Era Tradition,” Michele Fitzgerald tried to squash her own feud with Laurel, which started in “Ride or Dies.” Laurel was not ready to forgive Michele and her partner Jay Starrett for throwing her and her bestie Jakk Maddox into elimination.
Laurel told Michelle that she didn’t want anything to do with her, and Cara Maria jumped in to say, “Michele, I’ll be your friend outside of this.”
In another room, Cara Maria told Emily Schromm, “It’s almost like [Laurel’s] finding a new me to pick on.”
Later, Laurel asked Cara Maria why she was giving her an attitude and that’s when all hell broke loose. “You’re being an a**hole to Emily, you’re unleashing on Darrell [Taylor], like, maybe the problem is you, Laurel,” Cara Maria told her. Laurel got up close to Cara Maria’s face and the fight just escalated.
As they pointed fingers at each other, Laurel spat out, “Sit the f*ck down, you stupid b*tch.” She then accused Cara Maria of “gaslighting” her like her boyfriend Paulie Calafiore and her exes. As Laurel screamed, “I had your back,” the level of anger she had was truly horrific and production had to step in. As the other cast members rallied around Cara Maria, she looked truly heartbroken.
Cara Maria says Laurel used past emotional trauma as a weapon in their feud
After the explosive episode, Cara Mara took to TikTok to explain what happened outside of the cameras. “Laurel has a way about her of dripping breadcrumbs, pulling you in, only so that she could stab you right back down,” she told fans. “And she finds the people that have the most sensitive heart or are really people pleasers and those are the ones that she’ll go after.”
In the episode, Laurel had yelled at Cara Maria, “I had your back!” Then a flashback appeared from “Rivals 1” years ago when she was the only one who befriended her that season. Cara Maria explained in the TikTok video that the comment had nothing to do with “Rivals 1” and it was just edited to look that way.
She’s not allowed to talk about the details for legal reasons but Cara Maria revealed that Laurel meant that she had her back while she was going through traumatic times with past boyfriends. Laurel had even mimicked past abuse that she had gone through, which was cut out of the episode.
“She basically weaponized my past trauma [and] pulled it out of nowhere. What she did do is absolutely trigger something deep inside of me that I didn’t even know was there to set off.”
“When she screamed at me and threw things that have happened to me in my past that she knew about while mimicking it, it just unleashed me,” she continued. “I went into like another mental space.”
Cara Maria revealed that security had to follow Laurel for a few days to keep them apart after the fight. She also asked to speak to a therapist in order to process all the emotions that came up.
“The thing that she said that triggered me and sent the whole house off was removed because it legally can’t be shown,” she went on to say. She told fans that she understood why her level of upset looked so strange at the time and stated, “That’s why.”
Emily Schromm thinks Laurel Stucky plays mind games
In Johnny Banana’s podcast, “Death, Taxes and Bananas,” Emily shared her perspective on Cara Maria and Laurel’s feud. She agreed with Johnny that both Cara Maria and Laurel were to blame for their fight. However, she accused Laurel of playing mind games with the women in “The Challenge” cast.
“If she had a healthy relationship with females in her life or if she didn’t feel threatened by every single person and see herself as less than or competitive with somebody, this wouldn’t be an issue. But, there’s a dynamic that’s happening,” Emily shared.
She gave an example of how Laurel and Cara Maria played pickleball together and seemed open to renewing their friendship. According to Emily, Laurel did the same with Michele and even made out with her. After opening the door to a friendship, Laurel would then shut it closed, which Emily called, “jarring.”
“It’s a victim, rescuer, perpetrator triangle and I think the only thing I’ll say is that because Cara saw Michele starting to get into the trap of it, she was like, ‘No, I want to make sure somebody is here for you.'”
Emily believes that Laurel doesn’t want to be around other strong women and it has nothing to do with the show or smart gameplay. “It feels very personal … it’s a deep-rooted thing that I hope that can get worked out.”
