Natalie appeared on Survivor twice (winning San Juan del Sur and finishing second on Winners at War) and got off to a strong start on The Challenge: Double Agents with the first Gold Skull. But during this week’s episode, the stellar rookie was deactivated from the competition and “no longer cleared” to be in the game.
“It sucks that I have to step out because all I want to do is compete,” Natalie stated shortly after TJ delivered the news to everyone before the mission “Agents Down.” “It’s breaking my heart to leave. I just hope that I can come back and prove that I was built for this game and hopefully next time finish the job I started.”
Now, Natalie — who was paired up with Cory at the time — is opening up about the “personal matter” that required her to abruptly exit.
“I found out I was pregnant while I was out there,” she revealed to Entertainment Weekly. “Even though I had to leave the show, this was a new journey for me with my boyfriend, Devin [Perez], and I was 100 percent comfortable moving forward with him in this decision. But in the end it wasn’t my decision. I ended up having a miscarriage.”
She explained MTV and Challenge producers respected her decision to keep everything private on the show.
“I think it’s good closure and a good way for me to put this whole thing behind me,” she stated. “It’s very therapeutic. Since I’ve gone through this, I’ve talked to a few friends and it’s more common than it is not, and people just don’t want to talk about it because there is like a bad stigma around it. And for me, I never felt that. I never felt ashamed and I never apologized for what happened, and I just looked to Devin for support and we got through it together.”
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