Amanda Garcia Fires Back After Zach Nichols Calls Her a “Bad Competitor” & “Trash” Who Was Only Cast On ‘The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras’ to Cause Drama

This feud may ultimately outlive ‘The Challenge’ franchise itself…

Amanda Garcia fired back at her longtime nemesis Zach Nichols Monday after Zach shared his (extremely unfiltered) thoughts on Amanda scoring a spot on the upcoming season of The Challenge. 

As The Ashley previously told you, Amanda is set to appear on The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras as part of “Era 3.” While the new season doesn’t premiere until August, Zach recently took to his podcast, The Zach Nichols Podcast, to share his thoughts on the Season 40 cast– including Amanda, whom he so eloquently claimed did not deserve to make the cut. 

“Amanda sucks, she shouldn’t be there, she’s trash,” the former ‘Challenge’ competitor stated. “She shouldn’t be there. The only reason why she’s even famous [is that] she’s a seven-time competitor. Give her a participation trophy and send her home with her f**king kid. Loser.” 

Zach also called Amanda “garbage” before going on to allege that she had only been cast on Season 40 because the show wanted someone who would cause drama. 

Tell ’em how ya REALLY feel, Zach…

“That’s all she does,” he said. “She’s such a bad competitor and such a piece of s**t of a human being, she goes there and just creates arguments for no reason.” 

Amanda later took to X to respond to Zach’s (multiple) insults, while also throwing a dig at Zach’s wife, Jenna Compono, and bringing up some drama from past seasons of ‘The Challenge.’ 

“Guys IDGAF what that skinny misogynistic loser has to say,” Amanda wrote. “I’m sorry his b*tch f**ked half of MTV and that included his ‘best friend’ he sacrificed a milli for hahahah hating me will never erase that he’s a cry baby b*tch sulking on the no call list.” 

For those unfamiliar with (all of) the drama Amanda was referring to in her tweet, back in 2018 on The Challenge: Final Reckoning, Amanda and Zach were partners and late in the season, the two landed in an elimination after failing to agree on a team to send into “Armageddon.” With Amanda refusing to vote in a team from her alliance and Zach refusing to do the same in order to protect his friend Tony Raines (whose partner was Johnny Bananas), Zach and Amanda were automatically sent to Armageddon, where they lost the elimination challenge, as well as the opportunity to continue competing for the $1 million prize. 

While responding to Zach’s comments on Monday, Amanda also took the opportunity to reignite the rumor that Jenna and Tony hooked up during The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30 in 2017. According to CheatSheet, after ‘Dirty 30’ wrapped, Amanda claimed to have information about something that happened in the ‘Challenge’ house, which she reportedly planned to reveal at the ‘Dirty 30’ reunion. While Amanda ultimately chose not to reveal the information– allegedly because Tony ended up proposing to his now-wife at the reunion– the rumor has resurfaced throughout the years. 

(For the record, while Zach and Jenna met on ‘The Challenge’ more than a decade ago, the two had an on-again, off-again relationship for years. The couple went on to tie the knot in 2021 and welcomed their third child earlier this year.) 

Amanda’s concluded her response to Zach with a dig about him being on “the no-call list,” in which she was referring to Zach not appearing on ‘The Challenge’ since 2019’s The Challenge: War of the Worlds 2. 

As The Ashley previously told you, Zach claimed during one of his podcast episodes in April that there were a “combination” of reasons why he hasn’t competed on the show for years, though he placed most of the blame on unnamed producers for allegedly preventing him from being cast in recent seasons. 

“ … I’m not really good with people having authority over me, I like to be in charge of my own destiny,” he said on the episode. “But anyways, I’ve had some run-ins with a few producers just over stupid things and I don’t really like to back down and so I didn’t. And there was a few times where I pushed things a little bit farther, but I don’t want anyone to walk all over me … .” 

Zach has yet to respond to Amanda’s clapback.

‘The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras’ premieres August 14 on MTV. 

RELATED STORY: ‘The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras’ Will Feature 40 Veterans From the Last 26 Years of the MTV Franchise; Check Out the Full Cast 

(Photos: MTV; Instagram; X) 

5 Responses


  1. He is a total asshat. A cry baby and a bully towards women. I don’t feel sorry for his wife as she knew what he was like and married him anyway, but do feel for his children. He is a true loser in every way!

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