Exclusive: Allison "Ally" Mello and Ashley Covert talk 'The Amazing Race' (Part 1)

The Amazing Race eliminated Allison "Ally" Mello and Ashley Covert during Sunday night's ninth broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 23rd season.


The "LA Kings Ice Crew Girls" became the seventh team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's ninth Pit Stop at the Bosscha Observatory, home to Indonesia's oldest astronomical telescope located more than 4,300 feet above sea level, in last place.

The girls made a few mistakes during one of the leg's Detour tasks, which ultimately cost them the Race and the $1 million prize.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Ally and Ashley talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the first half of their interview. Check back with us on Tuesday for the concluding portion.

Reality TV World: How far behind Nicole Jasper and Travis Jasper do you think you finally got to the Pit Stop where you were eliminated?


Allison "Ally" Mello: We were extremely close to Nicole and Travis when we arrived at the Pit Stop, which makes it even more frustrating that we literally did the Roadblock before Nicole. But yeah, it was very hard to watch last night, because we know that we were neck and neck and that Ashley got the Roadblock done on her first try. And Nicole, previous to [Amy Diaz] telling her what to do, had no idea.

Reality TV World: Could you girls elaborate a little bit on what your relationship with Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran was like? Did you actually have any romantic feelings for the guys, and in turn, do you think they had feelings for either one of you? Or was it more of just a flirty friendship or an alliance? 

Ashley Covert: There was definitely no romantic connections, I mean, Jamal got married right away after the show ended. And I mean, Leo was one of our best friends the whole entire time, and we actually still talk to them daily. It was just fun to be able to play around and have that kind of, like, connection that we have with our friends back home when we're so far away from everybody.

So being able to kind of just joke and talk about normal things, and things that we enjoy, and just being able to have fun and be ourselves, was the kind of connection that we had. It was just -- we didn't have to worry about anything with them. They were just awesome. We had so much fun with them.

Reality TV World: I've received mixed feedback from Racers I've spoken to earlier in the season regarding how your relationship with Leo and Jamal might've affected your Race. Some teams think the guys helping you played a big role in why you got to the Final 5. Other teams feel Leo and Jamal actually held you girls back, because socially, they weren't popular and that probably rubbed off on you girls since you were so tight with them. What are your thoughts on that?


Allison "Ally" Mello: I can see both sides of the argument, but in all honesty, Ashley and I became close with several of the teams outside of Leo and Jamal. We were really close with them, but we didn't race like them.

Ashley Covert: We didn't even really race "with" them if you noticed throughout the Race either. So that's why it's so funny when you hear people that are like, "Oh, they held them back," or, "They probably could've done so much better." But it's like, at the end of the day, we really didn't even race with them too much.

Reality TV World: What other teams were you close with, as you just mentioned, besides Leo and Jamal during the Race?

Allison "Ally" Mello: Sure, we were close with -- we actually pretty much got close with [Timothy Sweeney and Marie "Reebs" Mazzocchi], and we were also really close with the Bunnies, as [Nicole "Nicky" Getz and Kim DeJesus] were named.

Ashley Covert: The beards [Brandon Squyres and Adam Switzer].


Allison "Ally" Mello: The beards. We loved the beards.

Ashley Covert: We absolutely adored the beards. We became really close with them.

Reality TV World: When I talked to Nicky and Kim last week, they mentioned to me that, Ally, you had a pretty solid relationship with Tim while racing or you two at least had something really flirty going on there. Could you tell me a little bit about that, your relationship with Tim?

Allison "Ally" Mello: Yeah, well you know, my boyfriend and I had broken up right before the Race. And Tim was single and I was single...

Ashley Covert: (Laughs)


Allison "Ally" Mello:  We just enjoyed hanging out together. I mean, off-camera, it was fun. He and I had a lot in common and we just enjoyed each other's company. (Laughs)

Ashley Covert: (Bursts out laughing)

Reality TV World: I'm trying to read between the giggles. (Laughs)

Allison "Ally" Mello: Tim was fun. I don't know, we definitely had a flirty relationship going on, which, you know what? That might've helped us a little bit in the future. So, you know, it just happened that way. It wasn't necessarily, like, my plan, but we do have a lot of down time and we were both single and just had fun.

Reality TV World: So did the flirty relationship continue after the Race or did it stop there? 


Allison "Ally" Mello: Tim and I keep in contact since the Race happened. But he lives so far that it's kind of like, I mean, we do keep in contact but I don't really know that it will go even further than that.

Reality TV World: Earlier in the Race, when you girls noticed Leo and Jamal had been U-Turned, you noted the other teams were picking on the guys and it seemed to bother you. So were you unaware of why several teams disliked Leo and Jamal so much at the time? I was told by some Racers that Leo and Jamal were constantly lying to people and swearing and had allegedly cheated Rowan Joseph and Shane Partlow out of money.

Ashley Covert: I'm like speechless! I don't even know what to say to that. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: So it seems like you didn't know that was allegedly happening. You sound surprised.

Ashley Covert: I think for Ally and I, the Leo and Jamal that we saw was the real Leo and Jamal, the competitive side of them. And you know, I think everybody kind of had a different connotation of what kind of person and what kind of team that they were, and they went on the show and they wanted to win the million dollars.

Sometimes, yeah, they did play a little bit dirty, and saying that they didn't U-Turn the beards, Ally and I definitely didn't agree with that at all. We were sitting in the train station and we were just kind of like, "Oh my gosh, like, what are you doing?!"


The moment that we even got on the train, we were like, "You know, everybody knows that you U-Turned them," so I think hearing so many different things about -- at the end, what all the other teams thought about them, it makes me sad because I really enjoyed racing with them. And they never really did anything wrong to us, because, I don't know.

Allison "Ally" Mello: I would not say that they raced dirty. I would not say that, because the way that they raced, yeah, it was a different style than what most people do, but it's for a million dollars. And at the end of the day, they are good people, but it's just their way of racing.

The only thing that I didn't like was when they lied about not U-Turning the beards, but other than that, the little things that they did to maybe get ahead, get in the heads of other teams, I don't really see why that should be a problem.

Reality TV World: I think it's safe to say your big downfall in this leg was the "For the Elephants" Detour task. What happened there at first? How did you girls confuse the fact you were supposed to go to the market before the zoo. Were the instructions on the clue unclear or something? 

Ashley Covert: Ally and I, really going into it, even before the Race started, was just made a really big deal of, "We need to read the clue 1,200 times," and I think at this point, we so overanalyzed the clue.

We literally stood outside of the zoo and looked at the clue and were like, "Does it say that we can't take a taxi? Where does it say that we can't have a taxi? It doesn't say it. Should we get a taxi? Are we allowed to get a taxi?"


We really re-read and just overanalyzed the clue, and I think that was kind of our downfall a little bit. I think once we got into the taxi, there was so much traffic and we were just so frustrated and it was hot.

There were just so many different factors that kind of just kept breaking down, and the fact that we couldn't figure out how to put the sugarcane in the car and then the taxi driver wouldn't let us put it in the car. I just think there's so many different factors that played into it. But I think our No. 1 thing was that we should've maybe just read the clue not as much. We over-read the clue! (Laughs)

Reality TV World: That makes sense. It sounds like the pressure was just getting to you. So how many taxis actually turned you guys down when you mentioned to the drivers having to transport those sugarcane poles?

Allison "Ally" Mello: I think it was...

Ashley Covert: Two?

Allison "Ally" Mello: Two taxis said, "No fruit. No fruit in my car." So they didn't want us transporting that stuff, and I noticed that a lot of the other teams who had males were able to carry the sugarcanes on the top of the car, therefore, it wouldn't be inside [the car].


And we didn't have that strength as an all-girl team to be able to hold it for that long up there nor did we have the reach. So that was kind of our decease.

Above is the first half of Ally and Ashley's exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Check back with us on Tuesday for the concluding portion.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski