"Probably the first and last time" — The Challenge 40 producers set up a Zoom call with Horacio and Derrick after controversial allegations

MTV aired The Challenge 40 Episode 4 on Wednesday, September 4, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET/ PT. In the fourth episode, 30 competitors from four different eras remained. In the elimination challenge, Aneesa Ferreira and Horacio Gutiérrez Jr. went home after competing against Jenny West and Derrick Kosinski, respectively.

However, after Horacio and several other fellow participants showed misconduct from the production team, the producers agreed to show the "raw footage" of the challenge to the two involved players. Referring to the incident, Horacio shared during his podcast how The Challenge 40 producers mentioned,

"This is probably the first and last time we’re ever gonna do this to anybody. We’re gonna show you guys the raw footage along with the rules."

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The Challenge 40: "Pick It Up" challenge and everything that happened later

The show’s fourth episode featured a total of 30 participants, including:

In Era 1: Aneesa Ferreira, Derrick Kosinski, Brad Fiorenza, CT Tamburello, Darrell Taylor, Rachel Robinson, Tina Barta.

In Era 4: Horacio Gutiérrez Jr., Jenny West, Michele Fitzgerald, Olivia Kaiser, Josh Martinez, Kaycee Clark, Kyland Young, Theo Campbell.

Later in the episode, the players participating in the elimination arena were announced: Horacio and Jenny from Era 1 against Derrick and Aneesa of Era 4. In the challenge, "Pick It Up," players were supposed to reach the basket and get a ball. They need to shoot the ball to the track, and while the ball returns down, players need to quickly collect jacks before the ball returns all the way down. Additionally, for all their collected jacks to be counted, they also need to catch the ball. The team that ends up collecting all 40 or most jacks would be declared as the winning team.

In the women's game, Jenny beats Aneesa after the latter had the "last three jacks" and missed the returning ball on the track. The final score was 40-37, which resulted in Aneesa’s elimination. In the men’s game, there was fierce competition. Derrick managed to win the game with one last ball left of Horacio, resulting in the latter's defeat.

After host TJ Lavin announced Horacio as an "eliminated" contestant, things got complicated and controversial. In his post-elimination interview with Entertainment Weekly, Horacio shared that even though he placed "all his pegs" and his competitor Derrick did not, the latter won the round.

"Another piece that is not seen (on the show) is the pegs were not stable. They would fall, and you had to pick them up…..It's things like that where other cast mates came in, and I appreciate them. It's people — obviously not Nurys and Kyland but — it's people who don't owe anything to me, like Devin, Jordan. I truly appreciate them and many others who are willing to say the version that I think truly happened," shared Horacio.

Along with Horacio, additional cast members that he mentioned also supported him and his version of how things turned out in the fourth episode.

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Events that followed after Horacio’s elimination on The Challenge 40 Episode 4

Seeing so much controversy from fellow participants, The Challenge 40 producers arranged a Zoom call on September 10, 2024, in which Horacio and Derrick participated.

Referring to the events shown in The Challenge 40 "raw footage," Horacio shared more during his recent episode on his "Challenge Mania" podcast, co-hosted by Scott Yager. Bunim/ Murray Production and MTV agreed, for the first time "in 40 seasons," as they received "negative feedback."

The footage they witnessed also included around five minutes of the show describing the rules before the challenge started.

"The final rule was once a peg is placed, it counts. We all missed it. They did say also, 'If they fall off the wall — they are going to fall off the wall — let them fall.'.… That was my big takeaway."

This cleared up Horacio's misunderstanding of how the production team picked up Derrick’s jacks, which he mentioned earlier in his Entertainment Weekly. It didn’t make any difference, as the first time both Derrick and Horacio placed the jacks, they were already counted in their total counts. Horacio also mentioned that it was one of the "tightest" eliminations, and Derrick beat him by "a second or less than a second."

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Fans can catch all the action happening on The Challenge 40 by watching the latest episodes on Wednesdays on MTV.