Mistakes were made! Cast members of The Challenge routinely hook up on the show. It’s something that’s been happening for years and years on the high stakes reality competition. But most of the time, flings are just flings. Such is the case for Tori Deal and Fessy Shafaat. Now Tori is opening up about how her tryst with Fessy was all a big mistake.
As reported by Us Weekly, Tori admitted that she regrets hooking up with Fessy shortly after ending her engagement to fellow Challenge contestant Jordan Wiseley. Said Tori, “It was the worst decision of my life. I mean, it’s, no offense to Fessy, like, you know, he’s a good person and … I was in a really bad spot. Like, I was just living in the s–t of my life.”
Tori went on to say, “Going through a breakup is hard. Rebounding is like a thing people do, but I like to think that … I’ve definitely put a lot of work into myself over growing the last two years now. I just put a lot of effort into that and [you] just gotta live with your mistakes and move on.”
After her brief hook up with Fessy, Tori didn’t speak with Jordan until a year and a half later, while filming the latest season of The Challenge. “We hadn’t even talked, so it was kind of like, ‘Wow, this is all happening.’ It was just, like, absolutely insane.”
When Tori and Jordan met on set in 2017, they immediately clicked and dated for two years before Jordan proposed. In a Challenge first, Jordan proposed to Tori after being eliminated from War of the Worlds. But the two announced their split in November of 2020.
Tori explained on her Instagram, “I thought I knew love when Jordan and I were together, but there is a different kind of love that two people feel when they decide it’s time to experience life apart. Even though Jordan and I are going to be moving forward in separate ways, our love, support, and connection with one another only grows stronger and deeper.”
While the split started out as amicable, that didn’t last long after rumors started that Tori had cheated on Jordan. Both Tori and Jordan denied the rumors. But once Tori hooked up with Fessy, tension between the exes only got worse.
Regardless, Tori never felt like she needed to quit. “I was searching for closure in any capacity. And so seeing him, it felt like an opportunity. It didn’t feel like, ‘Let me run from … this part of my life.’ It was different.” She added, “We definitely started off one way and then it ends another way. It was a beautiful opportunity to reconnect, honestly. Looking back now, it was hard, but beautiful.”
Even so, it wasn’t exactly a cake walk. Jordan ended up having his own fling with castmate Nurys Mateo during filming. Tori admitted, “Oh my God, it was so hard. Obviously, I understand [we didn’t have] the cleanest breakup. Like, we broke up, I hooked up with Fessy after … [and] that triggered Jordan. I understand that Jordan did things the way he wanted to. But I can say that I didn’t have an outlet. I didn’t have the ability to run from a camera when it was happening. I was stuck in the house and in the environment and also still trying to play a game. It was definitely one of the most emotionally taxing seasons I’ve ever been on.”
Ultimately, Tori doesn’t regret facing her ex on the latest season of The Challenge. She concluded, “I would say that like, we are probably the best that we’ve ever been. [Well,] not ‘ever been,’ obviously because we were like, about to get married. But you know, now we can definitely have a nice relationship that doesn’t feel toxic. It just feels good. It feels good for both of us where we are right now.”
TELL US – SHOULD TORI HAVE STEERED CLEAR OF FESSY? ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT TORI AND JORDAN ARE IN A GOOD PLACE? ARE YOU STILL WATCHING THE CHALLENGE?
