The Challenge's Suzan reveals how her co-star saved her life: 'Dying'

She might not have made it past the first episode of Channel Ten’s new reality show The Challenge Australia, but Suzan Mutesi had quite an extraordinary experience during filming.

The 36-year-old, who describes herself as an actress, model, fashion designer, author and influencer, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that she had a near-death experience living in the house which required her co-star Sugar Neekz Johnson to help her.

“Sugar was one of the nicest people, she even saved my life on The Challenge,” she reveals. “One Sunday they cooked for us a massive meal with steak and a barbecue, and I was choking on the meal.

“Sugar was sitting next to me and she was like, ‘This chick is dying!’. She jumps in, starts beating my stomach and pushes out this massive steak. I don’t even know why I’m not chewing my steak! I’m just nervous, I don’t know why I’m not eating properly.”

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Suzan went on to say that her eyes rolled back when she was choking and she thought she was dying, adding that Survivor’s Johnny Eastoe also assisted her.

“This massive thing jumps out of my throat and I'm like, I guess this is The Challenge,” she laughs. “I was so challenged in the house, literally.”

‘We disagreed on so many things’

Despite speculation that she and Sugar didn’t get along during filming, with a source telling So Dramatic! earlier this month that the pro boxer almost “punched” the influencer on the first night, Suzan asserts that the reports are completely false.

“Sugar is one of the sweetest people you would ever meet, on and off the show,” she says. “She stayed true to her character and she keeps to herself. I’ve never had any fights with Sugar, and I can say there were no fights between me and Sugar.

“There were more arguments between me and Billy [Dib] because we were partnered together. Like, that's where the arguments were because we disagreed on so many things and I was frustrated with his behaviour so I would confront him about it and he would get frustrated.

“But no, I never had any fights with Sugar, I never had any fights with anyone in the house.”

Yahoo Lifestyle has reached out to Sugar for further comment.

The edit

Speaking about watching the show on TV, Suzan admits it was “sad” seeing the final edit and realising what had been cut out.

“There were so many lovely moments where people could have gotten to know us as characters, and I feel like that was what was missing in the first episode,” she says.

“It jumped so much to the challenge, but I think there were so many stories and so many beautiful colourful moments that I think would have helped people understand who the characters are and what they were doing. There were so many moments people didn’t get to see that actually led to the decisions and where we were at.”

She adds that she would love the opportunity to do another reality TV show in the future for people to get to know her more “in-depth”.

“I would love to do more reality or even host something, I enjoyed it so much,” she says. “Honestly, I'm super grateful for Channel Ten to consider me for The Challenge.”

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