The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras has crowned its winners, and it turns out that the karma points were indeed a deciding factor in the finale. While Jordan Wiseley won every single checkpoint for the guys and left no room for a vote-based adjustment on the guys’ side, the results were a bit narrower for the women. Ultimately, Jenny West‘s performance in the two-day final was enough to pull her to a victory, but thanks to Rachel Robinson‘s massive karma points advantage, she ended up leapfrogging would-be second-player Michele Fitzgerald and tying Jenny for the win, which meant they got to split the pots for both first ($400,000) and second ($75,000) places and brought Eras I and IV to victory.
For Jenny and Rachel, that shared victory is doubly sweet; not only did they each take home a nice chunk of change to their respective families, but they also did so together after teaming up (as part of the “Bananas’ Angels” alliance, no less) and working together all season long.
TV Insider caught up with the two to talk about their victory and find out what misconceptions some audiences might’ve had throughout the season.
What was your immediate reaction when you heard about the karma points twist?
Jenny West: I mean, I feel like we all knew it was coming because everyone kept getting kind of ushered to the side after elimination and being left with T.J. [Lavin]. So we kind of had an idea, and for me, I kind of just knew it was probably not the best for me…
Rachel: Yeah, we had opposite reactions. Jenny heard it and was like, “Holy s**t!” I heard it and was like, “F**k yeah.” We both heard it and totally — you can even see people’s reactions. You could see Jenny and Michele kind of like freak out a bit internally, look down, you could tell. You can kind of see me kind of like, [dances] “Okay, that sounds good.” But the beauty of it is that it was designed into the game from the beginning, and, I mean, obviously, production really wanted it to have an effect on the outcome of the game.
Now, Jenny, like you said, your immediate reaction was clear. You felt like it was a disadvantage for you. Do you think it was just the alliance that gave you a disadvantage or what was it?
Jenny: I’ll be completely honest. I like and get on with everybody, not because I’m a people-pleaser, but because I’m just an easygoing person. I can’t be bothered with drama. And I’m just there for competition. And I understand that a massive element of being on The Challenge is that social side. But honestly, in group situations and those situations, I just really struggle. I find it really overwhelming. It’s not that I’m insecure and not confident, but in a group of people, I find that — I don’t know if it’s my ADHD, but I really struggle to stay engaged in a lot of people’s conversation, particularly people who’ve got a lot of history. The drinks they were offering in the house, I didn’t really drink, so I wasn’t up for kind of staying up later. I kind of, in a way, shot myself in the foot, but knowingly as well. It’s not that I wouldn’t make an effort with people, but I didn’t have the social battery that others seem to have to be able to really forge the friendships. For me, the way I get to know people is sitting with them on the bus on the way to a challenge and having a one-to-one conversation or lying by the pool having a one-to-one conversation rather than in a group with alcohol involved. So, yeah, I knew it was going to shoot me in the foot.
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Rachel: So, Jenny’s a no-B.S. player, which is why I gravitated towards her… She’s not gonna be fake friendly, which a lot of people in these situations… It’s all of a sudden you’re looking around and you’re like, “You don’t even wanna be together right now. What are you doing?” So, Jenny’s just not a fake player, and neither am I, surprisingly.
Jenny: You’re not, no.
Rachel: I think what saved me is that because I’ve been in the game so long, there’s just an allotted respect that goes towards me. So, people are going to naturally score me higher because they know better. They’re like, “Listen, we’re not gonna give an Era I woman who’s been around since the beginning of time a bad score just because we don’t know her as much personally” — even though I did happen to know the majority of this cast. Whereas Jenny comes in, she’s no-B.S., she’s sticking to the people that she really enjoys, not being shy about it, and it’s never popular to be Johnny [Banana]‘s best friend. So that’s also something that I’m learning this season, you take on [others’ baggage]. If you’re gonna go to bat for being Johnny’s best friend in the game, there are some asides.
Jenny: Byproducts, yeah…
Rachel: I think that also had to play into why probably people were standoffish to rating Jenny higher. They probably also didn’t want to give her an advantage. You can see that with people in their karma vote. They were very strategic in the sense that if they felt someone was going to be super strong in a final, they may have scored them lower.
Jenny: Yeah, I’m just gonna interject, though, Rachel, because I also want to say that whilst your karma votes were very, very good, I wouldn’t even say it came just down to because you’ve been around for ages or whatever. You get on with everybody, but what’s really great about you is you don’t try to get on with everybody to win points or to be popular. You have an air of just massive authenticity to you. And that is why I gravitated towards you because I know that what you’re giving me is who you are, and that’s it. So it makes me therefore feel safe within your company. I think that there’s a massive level of respect for everybody with you as well. And it’s like, they were, I think as well, scoring you high because you deserved it. And you were definitely a threat in a final to a lot of other people’s games. So even though you said they’d score people down or score me down because I might be a threat, I don’t think that happened to you because there was a massive level of respect from other players for you. And I love that for you, and you deserved it.
Rachel: Clearly, Jenny and I are each other’s biggest cheerleaders. We obviously love each other. This is why this win is extra special for us because — I just really want to point out to everyone that interviews today that we played the entire individual portion as a team. There’s no error in the fact that we were meant to win together. And our points adding up to the exact same number, this was not something that was pulled out of thin air. If you count it all, it all adds up. So one placement different in one checkpoint could have completely changed it.
Jenny: It would have completely changed it, yeah. And that’s with anybody as well — not even just between you and me — [also] Michelle.
MTV
Have you guys been able to take that song out of your head yet?
Rachel: Now it’s like rebirthed in it from the finale.
Jenny: The song that may not be named — just don’t even say one word from it because it triggers like a week-long thing that takes a while to get rid of.
Rachel, you said that you thought it was unfair that the women had to go against each other because of how strong the competition was. Do you count Jordan in that assessment?
Rachel: Listen, I think that there was a bit of an underestimation of the swim and how much of an advantage it was going to give certain people. I do think that that may have been slightly overlooked. I think the boat could have been a hair closer… especially on the way back, you know what I mean? Like the checkpoints when you’ve got to get back to the boat, some of the swims were just so long that, even if you got in the water five minutes ahead of a Jordan, he’s gonna catch you in the water — or even a Jenny or a Michelle. She did it to me. So it’s like, those kind of things were tough pills to swallow, but I think that it was all meant to kind of add up.
And listen, Jordan, had he not had such a stellar performance, he would have gotten caught on the karma points because he was second-to-last for karma. He’s lucky that Johnny was in the final with him because there’s probably one person in the house who had worse karma than him, and that was Johnny. It’s just crazy how it all mattered. Even to the point of who you took in — we didn’t see it at the time, but there was a strategy into who you took into the final with you based on just karma alone. Granted, Jenny and I would have still stood by each other, and Jenny was keeping me to the final, regardless of me being a good karma person. And I would have still taken Jenny to the final with me because we were so close at that point. I did not care how strong she was gonna be. I wanted to see it, and there were moments where, in that final, I knew that it was gonna come down to probably Jenny or Michele for first place, and I pulled Jenny aside multiple times and was like, “Keep your s**t together and f**king win.” It was bigger than me at that point. It was bigger than just what was gonna happen. We really truly played — especially the second half of the game — as a team. And that’s what makes the win extra special because we didn’t know it could even work out like that. I think when they read the results, Jenny truly believed that she was about to go from first to not first.
Jenny: Yeah, I mean, when they said “karma…”
Rachel: You’re like “God!”
Jenny: Yeah, “Here we go!”
Rachel: And I’m just sitting there like, “What’s gonna happen?!” And the truth is, I’ve said this multiple times, as soon as the results were read, I would have been beside myself had I taken that win from Jenny. Had I ended up a point ahead of her because of my eight karma points and her two karma points, I probably would be writing Jenny a check for 200 grand right now… That’s how close we were, and that’s why it just makes perfect sense. We didn’t know it at the time, but we strategically took out Michele. She beat her, and then I beat her in karma, right? That was the way it worked out. And I think Michele definitely has her glory, and there’s no doubt that she’s gonna come out of this final and everyone’s gonna love her and have such a soft spot for her, which, rightfully so, they should. But at the end of the day, I still say it’s not like she went from first to third. She went from second to third. It was meant to be that Jenny be first, and I’d be second … and that’s the way it worked out.
Going back to earlier in the season, Rachel, there was a rumor, some people said that you could see through your little blindfold with Averey Tressler. Is that true?
Rachel: Oh, this is… There’s a lot of rumors this season. There’s a lot of conspiracy theories. There’s a lot of controversy, but no. And I’ll tell you this: If anyone can see, the other person can see. Because our blindfolds are put on the exact same way, the exact same material. There’s no difference from what I wore to what Averey wore. You definitely couldn’t see through it all.
Jenny: Not to mention as well, you don’t put your blindfold on yourself. Production puts it on for you. You weren’t in control of affixing your own blindfolds.
Rachel: Yeah. When they were putting Averey’s on, she kept saying, “Don’t cover my nose, don’t cover my nose.” And I’m like, “My nose was covered.” So that was also something that I was kind of like freaking out, actually, when they were putting her blindfold on because I’m like, “Well, my nose was covered, so her nose has to be covered.” So no, this is a complete … What I will say is that there is no difference between what I wore on my eyes and what Averey wore on her eyes. So that is a complete fair elimination, and how you strategize moving forward is up to you.
MTV
Similarly, Jenny, I guess it was Jordan or someone on social media said something about the alignment of your sticks in that race against Cara Maria Sorbello — can you react to that?
Jenny: Regardless of mine being right or wrong, even if they were cast as wrong by the adjudicator, I had plenty of time to be able to switch the top for the bottom because I wouldn’t have had to take all the planks out. I could just knock the bottom one through, take the top one off, push that one through, and put it on like a top. I can’t remember how much further ahead I finished, but it was at least five minutes ahead of the next girl.
Now, I am a fair player, and I play a fair game. I remember thinking, with every challenge really, when you are calling, “Check,” you want to know that when that check has been given, nothing can go back on it because you want to make sure that you’re safe. And there are many occasions throughout the season where sometimes the props aren’t painted or cut properly. I’m just gonna take you first back to the invitationals with the 40. Some of those pieces were not cut in a way that you could ever really spot them properly together. And I remember putting my places in, and they weren’t all lined up at the end. And I remember saying, “Check,” and they said, “Yeah, it’s right.” And I said, “Are you sure?” And I remember saying, “The bottom one doesn’t look like it’s right.” And they’re like, “No, no, no, you’ve got it.” And I remember thinking, “They must think, ‘It’s probably not been painted exactly right’ or, ‘We know that we’ve f**ked that one, so we’re just gonna have to give it to because it isn’t the right place.’” I don’t know. But I am not somebody who would ever feel good about winning something if it wasn’t fair or I didn’t deserve it. But I absolutely want to say I f**king killed myself for that elimination. Got the scars on my arms for it. And I finished so clearly ahead of the next woman that even if I was made to switch those pieces, I could have switched them and still would have come first. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome of that challenge.
And I just want to say as well, I’m like Jordan in the sense that I like fairness, and he is definitely the investigator when it comes to challenges and things not being done right, and you always notice these things. On that day, he never noticed. And bear in mind, I finished first out of the girls. Everyone had plenty of time to go around and look at the puzzles, at not any point did anybody call me for that puzzle. So, yeah, I won that fair and square off my own merit, and I will definitely not have anyone take that away from me. And that was my bit, very long-winded…
Rachel: I’ll keep my comments to myself because I could be a b***, but I ain’t gonna say it.
Jenny: Rachel will defend my rights…
Rachel: Listen, I get very heated because I feel like when you take an L, you’ve got to take an L properly, you know what I mean? And let’s just say people knowing what the final is should have made them just shut their mouth in that moment because there are people who would have actually had to be rescued in the water had they been in that final.
When I talked to Cara, she said Jenny killed it, so at least she was aware.
Jenny: You know what? Thank you for that. And I mean, I think she was great, and I think that when she found out what the final was, she was very relieved to have been able to exit at that point. She would have hated it. That’s for sure. I mean, I hated it.
My last question is, what’s gonna happen at the reunion?
Rachel: I mean, everything gets brought to the table. I feel like everyone left the reunion, and we all felt very heard, and it did feel like group therapy. The interesting part, though, is that you kind of do this reunion mid-season, and then the rest of the season comes out, and then you feel like …you’d probably have some different topics to talk about, had you done the reunion today. But as far as the main drama, which is pretty much the Devin [Walker], the Michelle, the Johnny, that’s all gonna come to a head. I think people are gonna hear really fully both sides of that. Me and Aneesa [Ferreira], Nia [Moore] and Tina [Barton]… Cory [Wharton] and Josh [Martinez]. I think everyone really has their moment to get whatever they need to off their chest, and I do believe that everyone walked away from the reunion feeling heard and feeling better.
Jenny: I would just say that as I generally stay out of the drama, for me, I just sat there, and it’s almost like watching a tennis game, the whole of the reunion. I didn’t really have much to kind of contribute to it. But I enjoy listening to everybody air their s**t and have their say. So, happy for them.
The Challenge 40 reunion, January 15 & 22, 8/7c, MTV
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