Tonya Cooley (born January 7, 1980, in Visalia, California) is an American actress and television personality.
She also posed for Playboy as a Cyber Girl of the Week and appeared in an episode of the Cinemax adult series The Erotic Traveler.
[1] The stressful environment of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge seasons led to a bout with alcoholism, but in 2016, BuzzFeed News reported she has gained sobriety in the years since leaving the series and that she is now a salon owner.
At the time she began filming The Real World: Chicago, she claims to have never interacted with African-Americans and gay people and had rarely been apart from her boyfriend, Justin.
Additionally, she refused to participate in a challenge that involved nudity (where nudity was instructed by others and not chosen by self choice), her actions in later years which included posing for Playboy and appearing in an episode of the Cinemax softcore series The Erotic Traveler show different intentions, where she was empowered by deciding for herself and not told how to present herself by men.
In this Challenge, Cooley becomes more of a nuisance to the girls, more specifically onetime friends Coral, Veronica, and Rachel Robinson.
Veronica Portillo, Rachel Robinson, and Tina Barta began to harass Tonya, who referred to the three as the "Mean Girls."
She seeks relief from this harassment by speaking over the phone about her situation with friend Katie Doyle, a fellow Challenger not on the season.
She developed an animosity between her and Susie Meister who offended Tonya claiming her perfume made her "smell like a stripper, but in a good way."
Tonya starred in "Lost in Ecstasy", the second episode of the Cinemax series Erotic Traveler, which premiered February 9, 2007.
In October 2011, Cooley filed charges that she was raped with a toothbrush by two of her fellow cast members from The Challenge, while passed out during the production of The Ruins edition of the show.
[4] The Challenge production company Bunim/Murray Productions denied the allegations, saying that, “After a thorough investigation, we have found Tonya Cooley’s claims to be completely baseless.” In a legal filing, the defendants stated that Tonya's drunken, exhibitionist behavior was the reason she ended up in unspecified trouble, and that she "failed to avoid the injuries she claimed to have suffered."