‘The Challenge’: Julie Stoffer Says She and Veronica Portillo ‘Still Don’t Get Along’ Due to Infamous Harness Moment
The Challenge champ and The Real World alum Julie Stoffer recalled her infamous harness moment with Veronica Portillo from The Inferno. She claims the two “still don’t get along” because of it and hopes people don’t actually believe she tried to harm her co-star.
Julie Stoffer pulled on Veronica Portillo’s harness in the infamous ‘The Challenge’ moment
During The Challenge: Inferno (2004), the players competed in a mission where they had to race while suspended from zip lines hundreds of feet in the air.
The Real World: New Orleans star Julie Stoffer began yanking at Veronica Portillo’s safety harness, scaring the latter, who started screaming, “she’s trying to kill me.”
The other competitors also yelled at Julie to stop, but it continued until their time expired. No one was hurt, and MTV frequently shares the footage, including it in the show’s top 25 most shocking moments.
Nearly 20 years later, Julie spoke on her “murdering Mormon” nickname during an April 2022 interview with The Challenge Mania podcast. She promised she never tried to harm Veronica intentionally but badly wanted to win.
Julie says she and Veronica ‘still don’t get along’ due to the infamous harness moment
The reality star continued, pointing out that she “hoped” viewers didn’t believe she actually had malicious intentions. However, she claims that Veronica genuinely still thinks that Julie tried to kill her and noted they “still don’t get along” because of it.
According to The Real World: New Orleans castmate, her co-star never wanted to have a conversation about it afterward.
She admittedly wondered how others would have perceived the situation if it happened between two men and thought Veronica “screaming” the way she did only amplified everything.
Similar to the Road Rules star at that moment, the podcast hosts asked what she was doing when she yanked the harness. Julie maintained she only wanted to win but admitted she would have listened to the others when they asked her to stop.
Veronica is seemingly still not over the incident
Co-host of The Challenge Mania, Scott Yager, reminded his followers of the infamous moment in a December 2020 tweet. “When the M in MTV stood for murder,” he wrote, alongside a still shot of Julie pulling at Veronica’s harness.
The reality star reposted it and included that she felt The Real World alum went too far for a shot at the prize money, which would have been a “portion” of the total $10,000 as she would have had to split it with her teammates. “She proved right here that she’s the type to kill her husband for a $25,000 life insurance policy,” Veronica claimed at the time.
While she hasn’t spoken about the situation since, her 2020 tweet proves she likely still isn’t over the shocking moment, as Julie suggests. After the incident, the two returned for The Inferno 2 (2005) but didn’t rehash their drama. Veronica outlasted Julie in the competition, but she fell in the finals to the rival team, The Good Guys.
It’s rumored that Veronica will return for a season of the spinoff, The Challenge: All Stars, and Julie shared that she nearly appeared on All Stars 1 and wants to come back. If so, the rivals may compete against or with each other again. The Challenge: All Stars is streaming on Paramount+.
