Tonya Cooley

(She claimed that they were a gift from a wealthy friend for her 21st birthday.)

Though not most notable for her appearance on this season, Tonya competed and was the eighth girl to be voted off.

Tonya is most remembered from this season for not going to Puck's wedding.

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.

For the next Challenge, Cooley became friends with Coral Smith, and became playful with Challenge veteran Veronica Portillo.

In the early stage of the game, she injured her leg during a challenge, and had to wear a leg-cast while waiting for a comprehensive assessment of her leg.

This scared her Real World team, and they opted to vote her into the Gauntlet.

Angry and upset, she proceeded to the Gauntlet and lost.

This would be third time she would be sick or hurt in front of the MTV cameras.

(In Battle of the Sexes, she also had to wear a leg cast, but it did not affect her position).

In this Challenge, Cooley becomes more of a nuisance to the girls, more specifically onetime friends Coral, Veronica, and Rachel Robinson.

However her determination and marked improvement on the challenge did not go unnoticed.

She even went as far, in a challenge requiring the competing teams to procure a cell phone encased in a block of ice by melting it, to put rocks in her mouth to try to melt it.

However, her inability to step up as a leader as well as her waning prowess also did not go unnoticed.

Her notable argument with Road Ruler Tina Barta became a staple on the show.

She was voted off toward the end of the Challenge.

In this Challenge, tensions arose between her and Tina Barta.

Fellow Bad Ass team member Beth Stolarczyk instigated an animosity on the part of Robin Hibbard toward Cooley by telling Hibbard that Cooley bragged about a relationship she had with Hibbard's boyfriend, Mark Long.

Hibbard angrily excoriated Cooley, who denied Stolarczyk's allegations, to which Hibbard responded by calling her a whore and a liar.

When Cooley confronted a sleeping Stolarczyk, she was coy and refused to answer.

In a fit of pique, Cooley took Stolarczyk's luggage and valuables and threw them all in the pool.

Stolarczyk left the show as a result and took legal action.

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.

In the challenges, Tonya fluctuated from remarkable to disastrous.

She won two Infernos, sending two girls home, and made it to the final challenge, but her team lost.

She was partnered with Johnnie.

Tonya Cooley (born January 7, 1980, in Visalia, California) is an American actress and television personality.

She is a former cast member on MTV's reality television series, The Real World: Chicago, the 11th season of The Real World, which aired in 2002.

She was then a regular on the spin-off series, Real World/Road Rules Challenge, participating in eight challenges, with her last being in 2009.

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.

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.

Cooley told the publication, "I am a genuinely happy person now."

Tonya Cooley hails from Walla Walla, Washington.

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.

She did not socialize as much as her housemates, who often alienated her because they felt that she could be judgmental and overly dramatic at times.

She was hospitalized three times during the season because of kidney stones, and even left to go home for about a week.

She got into arguments with roommate Theo Gantt III, including one in which a glass was thrown, as well as with roommates Aneesa Ferreira and Cara Kahn.

Her constant use of the phone when talking with Justin upset her housemates.

Her breast implants were also a subject of much conversation as she would often talk about how she was flat broke yet had implants in her breasts worth thousands of dollars.