The Challenge: USA Season 2 Champs Explain Why Survivor Players Keep Winning the Game
Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. Outchallenge.
The Challenge: USA's second season came to a grueling finish on Oct. 19, with Survivor: Edge of Extinction winner Chris Underwood and Survivor alum Desi Williams being crowned the winners after beating The Challenge's seven-time champion Johnny Bananas, Ride of Dies' victor Tori Deal and several other veterans.
Following Danny McCray and Sarah Lacinta's win in season one, Chris and Desi's victories means the CBS spinoff series—which brings together stars from Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race and The Challenge—has been dominated by Jeff Probst's former castaways, giving a whole new meaning to the term "sole Survivor."
Still, both Chris and Desi felt like underdogs heading into The Challenge: USA, thanks to some fans labeling Chris the "worst" winner in Survivor history, while Desi felt unworthy of even being asked to do the spinoff after admitting she "sucked" at Survivor when she competed in 2017.
In an exclusive interview with E! News, The Challenge's new champs reflected on their surprising path to victory and revealed whether or not we'll ever see them on another season after each taking home $250,000.
E! News: Congratulations! Season one and two both have had two Survivor players win. Why do you think they are so dominant on The Challenge: USA?
Chris Underwood: Survivor players are just cut from a different cloth. There is a certain amount of grit and resilience you have to have to even say yes to being willing to put yourself out there and starve yourself and sleep in the sand. You have to be physically tough and Big Brother leans very heavily on the social game and not as much on the physical. On The Challenge, you have to be more well-rounded because if you can't back it up in elimination, you get sent home. Survivor performs so much better in the eliminations and that allowed us to keep our numbers strong until the very end. We get the physical aspect and then we also get the social aspect.
E! News: Johnny Bananas spoke to us about feeling as though The Challenge veterans were the underdogs heading into the season and that a lot of the Survivor and Big Brother players had no interest in playing with them.
Desi Williams: It was very clear at the beginning that I was like, "Let's just get the vets out. Let's just make this game an even playing field." It's very clear that if you play this game 22 times, you've got an advantage. He could strategize and think of ways to compete in challenges that no one else can. Wes [Bergmann] is the same way, just because we haven't played this game. Their ability to find a work-around is just something that you won't gain without experience. So I was an impenetrable wall, but there were too many people playing the middle early on for that to stick.
E! News: Chris, you've spoken a lot about feeling like an underdog, despite winning Survivor after returning from the Edge of Extinction. Why did you feel like you had to prove yourself?
Chris: My whole life has been a series of me being in a position where I'm not the fastest, strongest, smartest, but I have to find a way to get through and earn my position. Even after Survivor, I had this nagging feeling of the couch critics saying I was the most undeserving winner of Survivor ever and I had a lot to prove coming out here, that I could go toe-to-toe with the best of them and beat them. It is a driving force in my life that I'll probably never be able to get rid of. I'm always operating like I have a chip on my shoulder. I run a sales organization and a lot of it is going door-to-door and two weeks after winning Survivor, I was back to knocking on doors and no one knew who I was after winning. It's just part of my mentality to never take anything for granted and give it everything you're got even if you're at the top.
E! News: Desi, you also opened up about wanting to prove yourself after your early exit on Survivor and then having your partner, Enzo Palumbo, quit on your during the final last year. What was your mentality heading into this season?
Desi: Obviously, I am not a great Survivor player. I did not perform well, so I was shocked when I was asked to do The Challenge and went in with very little confidence that I could perform well. So, when I made it to the final, I had worked all season to build up my confidence and then it was snatched away from me. I was in a position where I built up myself to this point but had nothing to show for it. I can't even prove I actually was deserving. Just making the final the second time around just proved to me that the first time wasn't a fluke and I'm not as bad at The Challenge as I am at Survivor!
E! News: What did it feel like when T.J. Lavin told you that you had won?
Desi: I went into this season knowing that I needed to be mentally tougher than I was in season one. My biggest mantra in my head was, "If I'm not dead, I get to keep going," and so that's exactly what happened. So to make it to the top was like, "Positive self-talk does work. I am worthy of winning the show."
Chris: That final day was gnarly and we were 30 percent grade incline in some of those spots with a 30-pound rock on our shoulder and some of the camera crews even got lost going up. It was so hard. But the ending of me not only finishing at the top, but finishing so far ahead of everyone else—I think i finished 30 minutes ahead of Cory [Wharton] who came in second—I was hooting and hollering and I threw my helmet 50 feet in the air. It was a really food feeling because I just knew I had earned every bit of that win and there was nothing else I could have squeezed out of myself to get to that point.
E! News: Now that you have played both games, which is harder: Survivor or The Challenge: USA?
Desi: I would say Survivor is harder, you're starving, you're outside, there are no modern luxuries. You're basically doing everything you're doing on The Challenge, but you're also hungry and have no shelter. And you have no way to win your way back into the game.
Chris: Survivor. And I know that because if you had to choose, gut instinct, which one you would go back to, I would go back and play The Challenge, not Survivor. Because, for me personally, it takes too long to get back to being a normal human being after Survivor. It literally, psychologically, and hormonally and physically, messes you up. It's just not even on the same scale in terms of personal fortitude.
Desi: I don't know, as someone who has never seen seven figures in my bank account, I am going back to Survivor first!
E! News: So, will we see you return to future seasons of The Challenge: USA to defend your title?
Desi: Never say never, I don't know that next season is in the cards for me. I'm getting married next year and it would be too close to the wedding to justify it. And I also have a business I would be leaving, so the stars would have to align. It would have to be the right timing, but we'll see.
Chris: Coming back, it would have to be the stars aligning, perfect once-in-a-lifetime, like, you-cannot-say-no-to-this-season type of format because things are good back home and I have a lot going on. People need me, I have a daughter and a wife and I'm not 25 and single and living off of my Challenge career. I have a real career, so it would have to be something really big for me to come back.
E! News: Any big plans for the prize money?
Desi: This weekend, I am buying a new computer and a new phone. And then I am hoping to just be responsible with the rest of it. Save and invest and whatever my financial advisor tells me, honestly.
Chris: My wife and I have been talking about buying land here in South Carolina, so winning this money is a nice little down payment we can store away until the time is right to purchase property and build a house that we can call home for a long time.
To prepare for The Challenge's return on Oct. 25, check out the season 39 cast:
The Challenge: USA is streaming on Paramount+.
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