‘The Challenge: USA’ Competitor Paulie Calafiore Reveals He’s Bisexual

The Challenge: USA competitor Paulie Calafiore, who was just eliminated from the reality competition show during Episode 3 on Thursday, has come out as bisexual.

The 34-year-old CBS television personality had previously alluded to not identifying as heterosexual while speaking to his fellow contestant Tori Deal on the show, but is now setting the record straight.

“I am bisexual,” said Calafiore to GLAAD’s Anthony Allen Ramos in a Zoom interview. “I feel good about finally being able to talk about this.”

“I almost felt guilty that it’s taken me this long,” he added. “And I really had to change my perspective and be like, ‘Well, you know there might be other people that are going through this exact same thing… and maybe this is what they needed to hear and what they needed to see in order to do it themselves.’”

“Maybe there’s a younger version of me somewhere who gets to see this and [says], ‘You know what? I don’t have to pretend to be this because I’m an athlete,’” he said.

“I came through athletics, so that forced me to repress who I was, sexually,” he confessed. “I didn’t know if I was attracted to women, attracted to men, or if it was just like an energy thing. I’d be like, ‘I need to prove that I’m the most alpha human in the world.’”

Calafiore shared on Twitter that he never planned to share “such personal attributes about who I am and my sexuality.”

“Returning to The Challenge was an unexpected rollercoaster in many ways,” he wrote. “I didn’t expect to leave so early, for starters (lol) – but even better, I didn’t expect to make so many friends, repair relationships and reveal such personal attributes about who I am and my sexuality.”

“While I wish I could have stayed longer, I know I’ll see you all again real soon! Stay tuned for what’s to come,” he teased, adding purple devil and red heart emojis.