Cara Maria Sorbello Says Her "Toxic Friendship" with Laurel is Over After 'The Challenge: All Stars' Season 4
The Challenge: All Stars Season 4 is here! Throughout the season, Parade.com will speak with the challengers who were eliminated from the all-star competition.
Across 12 eventful episodes of The Challenge: All Stars Season 4, there was one big constant amongst the variables: All eyes on Cara Maria Sorbello. The two-time champion had taken some time off after her last season, but she quickly became the center of focus when she appeared on All Stars. As soon it was announced there would be one winner, she became the biggest threat and target of the house. And so Cara's season was like a good old-fashioned Pole Wrestle, as she fought consistently to maintain her grip on the precious star that would be the difference between her making the final and getting iced out.
Cara had to fight a front on multiple sides. There was Kam Williams, whose desire for Cara's star became personal when she felt she didn't support her on the move to vote in Ayanna Mackins. There were Brandon Nelson and Jasmine Reynauld, who Cara considered "friends," only to have them throw her in the first chance they got. And, of course, there was Laurel Stucky. The incredibly complicated dynamic of Laurel and Cara that has spanned almost 15 years continued to knot in All Stars 4. Cara's vocal disapproval of Laurel's reconciliation with Nicole Zanatta led to the couple turning on her, culminating in confrontations both physical and vocal. In the end (and after two hard-fought eliminations against tight competition), Cara made it to the end of the final. And, as her season largely was associated with Laurel, it's only appropriate it end that way. Laurel was given stars by the eliminated finalists, which gave her a significant advantage on the last day, while Cara was left empty-handed due to her status as a threat and outcast. Despite a valiant effort, Cara couldn't make up the ground, finishing a respectable second place behind her Challenge "frenemy."
After the finale, Cara Maria speaks with Parade.com about how she entered The Challenge after her break from the show, her relationship with Laurel (and where things currently stand), and her reaction to some of the comments made about her from her competitors.
Related: Everything to Know About The Challenge: All Stars Season 4
It had been a few years since you competed on a Challenge season. So what was your anticipation coming into All Stars 4, given your time away and the fact that your reputation would precede you?
I was so nervous going into it. Because there's a lot of expectation when it comes to me. So I can't just go drink, hang out and not perform. When it comes to me as a competitor, there's nobody that says they don't care or don't feel anything. You either love me or you're lying, because you're an anti-fan that actually is obsessed with me. So when it comes to that, I knew that I had a lot on my plate. So I came in there, and I was like, "I have to win. I have to do well." And right off the bat, they're like, "Well, you're going against Rachel, and all your friends are [expletive] turning on you." And I was like, "What's happening?"
So it was a lot. But I'm very thankful for the path that was put in front of me. Because I think if I was to just sit back, coast, and be handed things, I would not be who I am. And I think it's called The Challenge for a reason. And even though it's the harder path, and in the moment, it's like, "What's going on? Is this how am I?" You have no idea what's going to happen when you're in the moment. But I am so thankful, looking back on it, for every vote that was thrown at me, every time that I was in a nomination and was able to finagle, something to save myself for one more week. I am thankful for every struggle thrown at me because it makes me a better competitor. They're making me into who they don't want me to be by making my road harder. So I welcome it, and I'm thankful for it.
Well, let's jump to the end of your more difficult road. You talked throughout the season and final proper about how Laurel was your biggest competition. And she comes into that last day with a considerable advantage over you. What were your expectations of your chances of winning as that final day went along?
Laurel herself is an advantage. She is an advantage as she exists. And so to go into a final knowing that she was given the gift of being able to skip three entire checkpoints, I was like, "Okay, Cara, you got your work cut out for you." But you know what? That star that I had, I earned the [expletive] out of my one star. And everything that I do on The Challenge, I am who I am because it is not given to me. I work hard for everything, and I earn it. I just took it as another challenge. I'm like, "My back's against been against this wall the whole time. And if there's one thing I know how to do, I can survive. And if I could beat Laurel with a three [expletive] star advantage that she had on top of me, then, nobody can take it away from me." That was the mindset that I went in with. I'm like, "I can do this."
And then as we were doing the checkpoints, really, you have to tell yourself, "There's a way. You'll find a way." But it was like, damn, she got to skip entire puzzles. And I was good at them and I did them. But man, that still takes time to put every single piece together. And she's like, "Not going to do it, not going to do it, not going to do it." And I'm like, "Alright. I have to be 10 times the competitor she is." And I narrowly lost. And it is what it is. But, had she not had those, it would have been nice to be on an even playing field. But this is The Challenge, and you never know what's going to happen. So you got to respect the game.
Speaking of Laurel, it seems like your dynamic always has been a bit of heads or tails when coming into the season. From what we've heard, you were the shoulder for Laurel to cry on when she was dealing with drama around Nicole. But we've also heard that Laurel had apparently told people early on to not trust you or work with you. Even before her big blow-up on you happens, what was your sense of the push and pull of your relationship this season?
I was absolutely blind to Laurel and what she was doing. We hadn't talked. And I just showed up, and I was like, "Alright." I'm here. Laurel's here. She's always been a big competition. They're not going to put me on the season with a bunch of layups. Like, I'm going to get the tough girls that I have to go against and prove myself against, and Laurel was definitely one of them. And I was, like, "Alright, she's here, Nicole's here, Rachel's here, Kam's here." But we were quite we're friendly at the airport. And she would always come to me and confide in me, and we had a lot of long talks. I obviously wasn't running after her. I don't shy away from strong women. I love competing against them because it's something I take in pride. It's always me trying to prove myself. No matter how many times I prove myself, I'm still going to try to prove myself. So I don't go after anybody unless they come after me.
I didn't know Laurel was coming after me. I really thought that I was her little soldier. Having her back in a relationship, the things she confided in me made me hate Nicole. So, I felt very protective of Laurel. And I was like, "This is my chance to help Laurel [and] save Laurel." And I ended up getting so frustrated because it was back and forth and back and forth. And I saw how damaging [it was], according to me, hearing only Laurel's side. You asked anybody who only heard Nicole's side, it's different. They're all everybody's the hero of their own story. But only hearing Laurel's side. I was extremely defensive of her, and I didn't want her to go through what she ended up going through afterward. We all know how everything turned out. I wanted Laurel to be the fierce competitor that I know she is. I could have sat back, let her be taken back and forth by Nicole, let her be squished down and not be the "eyes on the prize" Laurel. That would have been an easy win to stomp over her when she's not her. But I wanted her to be her. Because if you're not the Laurel that I know, then what am I competing against you for?
So, I didn't know she rallied the entire house as soon as she came in. "Don't trust her. Don't talk to her." Because she was always being nice to my face and confiding in me. I didn't know that she was telling everybody, "I want to go against Cara. We need to get her out of the house. Put me against her. I want something physical so I can [expletive] embarrass her, because I'm bigger than her, and I just want to make her look like a [expletive] loser." That's not a friend. Do you know what I mean? So I felt like the way I was behaving towards her was somebody that you'd want to have to have your back. The way that she was behaving towards me was very toxic. It was two-faced. It was manipulative and just shitty. So, yeah, I didn't know Laurel was who she was. That's why I was happy when she won. I was like, "Okay, she's got $250,000. Good for her. She beat me at this game, even if it was with a three-checkpoint advantage given to her. It's going to go to vet school. It'll pay to take care of animals. I support that." I was supportive of her. She was happy that she beat me because she exists to crush me. And if you ever have seen our history, you see it. So that's a very toxic friendship, and it is over.
So the other side of things is the Nicole part of it. As you mentioned, you had your own perspective on it. But the two of you have a history as well connecting back to her first season. In All Stars 4, we see certainly some exchanges of heated words, and it even got nearly physical at one point. Talk to me about how you navigated that dynamic.
She was somebody that literally ran up to me at the airport on day one and said, "Oh my God, Laurel's here. Protect me from Laurel." And was nice to me until her and Laurel started hooking up again. And for me, I'm like, "I'll keep myself out of this [expletive] between you two." I don't make it a mission to come after the strong girls I really don't like. So, to me, the strong girls were Rachel, Kam--even though she just had a baby. Kam's got that inner dog in her, like. She's strong, she's smart, she is a threat. So Kam, Rachel, Laurel, Nicole, I was going to see how the game played. But how I play a game is to save myself. I just play in [expletive] survival mode, because everybody always just comes after me.
And when it came to Nicole, I was feeling her out. But she's very untrustworthy and uncomfortable to be around, because she's like a scared cat. She's always looking at who's talking to who. And, "Oh my God, oh my God. Cara is talking to Steve." I don't know how to explain it. She's extremely paranoid, and it is very uncomfortable to be around her. She is unpredictable with how she plays. And I don't like her. She already in a final tried to sabotage me in Vendettas. I mean, I don't like her. I'll never work with her. She's physically strong, but mentally, somebody said this before, she's a bum. I think that was about Kailah, but I'll give it to Nicole, too.
We've heard a lot of comments this season about you from your competitors both on and off-screen. Adam has said that he disliked how you walked around with too much confidence. Derek said you were tough to live with and wouldn't partner with him until he started winning dailies. Flora, in confessional, called you "an annoying crybaby" and "a manipulating little girl in a grown woman's body." Were you aware of your perception at that time? And what's your reaction to those comments?
Well, Adam doesn't like strong woman, because that's the only thing that he could say about me. He doesn't want me to say that I could win, apparently. So you're supposed to go to do a Challenge for $250,000 to a million dollars, whatever the prize money is, and you're supposed to walk around like you're going to lose. Apparently, that's what Adam wants for the woman in the house. I think that's extremely misogynistic. I think the only other thing that he said is, "I don't like her because she thinks she can win and because she's shady." But we've seen him play the game, haven't we? We've seen the way he treated Steve, haven't we?
I think you need to look at the source of who's saying things. Has Steve said anything bad about me? Has Tina? Has Rachel? Has Ace? Has Jay? What do you think of them as competitors? What do you think of Flora? What do you think of Adam? What do you think of Jasmine? I think a lot of it is checking sources. Just because something sounds sensational in a soundbite, "Oh, Cara's this, Cara's that." Where's the substance to it? Explain. People like to jump on things. They want to jump on it without any substance to it. The truth is boring, you know what I mean?
So when it comes to those people, I just feel like they were gaslighting, projecting, and coming at me instead of coming at a strong player like Laurel. Because Laurel is scary, Laurel's intimidating. I'm not intimidating. I'm easy to gang up on and try to get rid of, even though I won't die. But it's easier when you're looking at me. You want to come pick on me, or come try to get me out of the house? Or you want to come at Laurel, who's scarier to come after? So you come after me. It's easy. And I feel like that gang mentality is what happened. And at the end, they got exactly what they didn't want, and that was to make me better out of it. The more obstacles you throw in my path, there's a chance you could send me home, take it. But if I climb over them, then you're going to going to get everything you don't want. And that's that's me coming out stronger.
Well, to that point, it does feel like we saw you in a unique position in All Stars 4, being on the outside and constantly having to fight to keep your star and stay alive. That feels very different from your last few flagship seasons, like in War of the Worlds 2 when you helped command an alliance that rolled to the end of the game. What was it like making that adjustment to a game style you're not used to?
Here's the thing. In War of the Worlds 2, a lot of people forget, because Paulie was able to flip the house very, very early. But when we came in, we were like, "Team America, let's go! Let's win this [expletive]. I'm on a team with Johnny. I'm on a team at Laurel. But guess what? They're on my team, right? They're not going to be my enemies. We're working together. I don't like them, but they're good players. Let's work together to get to the end. I was down for it." It wasn't until--I'm just throwing this out here--they were throwing challenges to get rid of me and Paulie, actively making fun of us in the bus, laughing about what they were doing, bragging about it loudly. So, at that point, that was survival. And we were able to take the shots, and the shots paid off on the kill for us to flip the game on War of the Worlds 2. So if we didn't flip the game, you're damn right, my ass would have been in there every single time, because Team USA wanted me and Paulie gone. So we ended up figuring it out. So that's what happened there.
And then, as far as this season, I loved the nostalgia. I loved the challenges. I freaking love All Stars. I am thankful for the friends that I did make. I mean, it wasn't really shown. But a lot of the people in the house were being dicks towards innocent little Steve. I thought I had a hard path. Steve's been in three times. So not only were they voting him in, but you had people like Adam, which is blowing my mind how entitled he was to feel like Steve would owe him or give him anything. Adam and others were like, "Oh God, we just can't stand Steve. Another one of his stories. He's always so [expletive] weird. Look at him in the backyard. What's he doing? Here comes Steve again." That's the [expletive] that I was hearing. So I was very defensive of Steve.
So the focus of the story is people coming at me. But it was the same type of gang mentality on Steve. Except they really weren't intimidated or worried about Steve. I mean, it's not like he's gonna fight or yell at people. He's just going to do his thing and dig holes in the backyard with a spoon, or make [expletive] with his murder kit ropes and whatever he's got going on. Steve's going to Steve. You know, "Steve in the Wild." And I love Steve, and I stuck up for him in any room that he wasn't in. If somebody was going to talk [expletive], I was like, "I like Steve. I think he's cool. I like his stories. I'm not letting him go in a third time. I'm not voting for Steve." So I think a lot of the [expletive] that comes out, I think you need to consider the source before you run with anything, [just] because it sounds good.
