Ameerah Jones Reveals the Anti-Vet Sentiment Began from the Start of 'The Challenge: USA' Season 2

Photo by Aaron Smith, courtesy of Paramount

The Challenge: USA season 2 is here! Every week, Parade.com will speak with the CBS reality alumni who were eliminated from the all-star competition.

Ameerah Jones had one goal when she came to The Challenge: USA season 2: Make it out of the early game. After getting blindsided as a power player in the first few weeks of her Big Brother season, she was looking to make a much bigger splash with her second chance on reality TV. Initially, it seemed like Ameerah was set up well, backed by a BB coalition. Then came the MTV veterans. In the first deliberation, their voices proved to be the loudest, as Tori Deal and Cory Wharton pushed forward  Ameerah into elimination as a rookie they had no ties to. And despite disagreement from the Big Brother contingency, including Ameerah's best friend and fellow season 24 player Alyssa Snider, the majority of the team acquiesced. Fuming, Ameerah was forced to go against another Challenge vet in Survivor winner Michele Fitzgerald. Unfortunately for Ameerah, she couldn't keep her eye on the ball, losing to Michele by a hair and becoming the first eliminated from the season.

Now out of the game, Parade.com speaks with Ameerah about how much of a Big Brother coalition existed before the season, her reaction to getting nominated by the veterans, and the work she did to get a guy voted in that didn't make the edit.

Related: Everything to Know About The Challenge: USA Season 2

What made you decide to do The Challenge: USA?
So it's funny. I watched The Challenge way back in the day, so I was a fan. When I saw Wes, I was like, "Oh my gosh, it's Wes. I watched this guy when I was in high school." So I was an early fan of The Challenge. And then when The Challenge: USA came out, I started going back and watching some other seasons. So I do really like The Challenge, and when I did get the opportunity, I was super excited because I was like, "Oh, this is my show." I'm a competitor; I love to play the game. I love to compete. I love anything active. I'm not afraid of heights. I got this in the bag. 

You didn't walk in there alone. You were joined by two of your fellow Big Brother 24 competitors in Monte and Alyssa S. Did you all agree before the season to work together?
Once we got there, that's when we were like, "Okay, we're locked in." Obviously, Alyssa are very good friends. Me and Monte are good friends too. But you know how it turned out in BB24. And so I was like, I" don't know if I can trust this guy." But Monte swore up and down. He promised me he's got my back. And so I was like, "Alright, I'll give it one more go." So once we were there, I was like, "Okay, BB24. Let's do this."

You mentioned in confessional that you hoped Big Brother had your back. There were of course other alumni there, including those like Josh, Faysal, and Paulie who were originally from Big Brother but also had history in The Challenge. Was there an actual coalition of Big Brother players going into this season?
So it didn't extend to the people in the middle. I knew like if I'm playing this game, and I'm Josh, Paulie, or Fessy, I'm going to be riding the middle as long as I can. So I was aware of that. I'm like, "They're definitely gonna do that." But I love Tiff, and I knew her before this, and so I knew that she would have my back 100%. I was nervous about Alyssa Lopez, but actually, I really, really liked her. And Alyssa Snider had a connection with Lopez. They're from Sarasota, their names are both Alyssa. So they already had a connection. So I trusted Snider with that relationship, but also I was able to build a relationship with it. And then Tyler, he was on the green team with me, and he was riding with me from day one. So I was excited to be BB strong in there. I was like, "We can do a little damage."

You had quite the reaction when you were nominated by the blue team, calling them "a bunch of punks." Were you surprised to be chosen, especially with Alyssa S. in there hopefully stumping for you?
So I will say out of all the teams, I did not want blue to win the vote. I felt like the red team, I would have had a better chance [with]. However, I was surprised. We had already been going around the house like, "We'll take out the legends. We'll take out the vets." And so I was surprised when it was me, especially because I did have Alyssa over there riding for me.

That's interesting, because we certainly saw the mentality to take out the vets come to fruition the round after you were eliminated. But would you say that was around from the very beginning?
Oh, it was coming up everywhere, left and right. I was hearing about it all the time. So I definitely felt like we were all on the same page. Now what I will say is that I didn't talk to a lot of the blue players about it. So I don't know, maybe they were never going to do that. But between red and green, we already knew what we were going to do.

Cory and Tori put out your name because they say you hadn't spoken with them. Was that true?
It's true. You have to remember, I just got there. This happens really quickly. And it's a ton of people. I'm trying to talk to everybody, but they were absolutely right. I said, "Hi, I'm Ameerah, but we hadn't had a chance to sit down and bond, like, "This is what I'm about, blah, blah blah." So they were definitely able to use that as an excuse; but it's definitely not a valid excuse. They put me up because I'm a rookie, but they can use whatever they want.

We see that the red team is a united front on sending in someone on green, but we didn't see any deliberations on your team. Did you all come together for some sort of strategy in your voting?
So I was going around the house, going hard to get a guy's name. I was having one-on-ones with anybody, everybody. Even with blue, I was like, "Why did you put me up?" Because I wanted to know the reasoning. So I was going around the house really hard saying, "Please, let's vote in a guy." And then my argument to the men was like, "Hey, we don't know what's gonna happen. If we put in a guy this week, that means the next one will be a girl." So I'm selling them on this. And so, within green, I had everyone voting in a guy. I even got Monte, he was like, "Okay, I got you. We'll do this." But Amanda told me she was going to put in a guy. But Monte told me, "Hey, just letting you know, Amanda told me she was putting Michele." So I knew there was gonna be some stragglers in there.

We saw from the blue team how much they referred to Cory and Tori in their decision-making. What was the dynamic like on the green team with the vets in Wes and Amanda?
I've seen the show; I was very cautious of Wes. He gave me a lot of tips. And I felt really supported by Wes. But then it kept going through my brain, like, "Is he actually supporting me? Is he trying to trick me?" With Amanda, she's just fun. She's super fun. She says the most obnoxious things. Everything that she says out of her mouth comes out of left field. So it was two very different legends on our team. We had Wes, who was really coaching us and telling us what to do and how we should play. And then we had Amanda that was over here, just stirring up [expletive].

When the twist is revealed about the Hopper, what was your reaction, especially when it ended up with Michele being picked?
I was thinking that we're gonna get a guy down there. There was like 25% chance of a girl. Once I saw the votes. I was pretty happy. I was like, "Okay, I put in work. It worked; they're voting in a guy. Now it was between Michele and Desi. And let's be honest, I don't want to compete against either of them. [Laughs.] I also liked both of them. Not only do I not want to compete against them, I don't even want to send them home. I mean, obviously, I will; I'm gonna give it my all. But I was like, "Alright, it's my show. The girl was a Survivor champ, but I'm gonna go in full throttle."

You lost to Michele by 18 balls. Was your feelings afterward more that you were able to keep pace with her, or sadness that you lost by such a small amount?
 It was a bummer. I gave it my all and I tried my best. But I let myself down a little bit. I really wanted to win that. And I was like, "I can't believe I just lost by that much. I could have won this thing." So I was let down. I was also so cold. I was very frozen during this thing. Even when they told me, I still took probably like 10 seconds for it to actually register in my brain and I see Michele celebrating alongside me.

[Laughs.] It's that brain freeze! Finally, in honor of the infamous "[expletive] They Should Have Shown" episode of the old-school days of The Challenge, what's one moment from your quick amount of time on the show that you wish had made the edit?
Like you said, it was pretty quick. I wish that they could have seen how hard I was trying to get a guy's name thrown in there. I wasn't just sitting around like, "Woe is me." I was like, "Okay, I gotta get to work." Because that's pretty much how I spent my entire time since my ball was put in there. I was talking to everyone. I had a lot of friendships into the house, so that would have been more fun [to show]. But that was fun content, and I didn't really have much. It wasn't a lot of fun for me. It was just straight downhill. [Laughs.]

Next, check out our interview with The Challenge: USA season 2 host T.J. Lavin.