Exclusive: Caroline Cutbirth and Jennifer Kuhle discuss 'The Amazing Race' (Part 2)

Caroline Cutbirth and Jennifer Kuhle were eliminated from The Amazing Race's 22nd season in fourth place just before the final leg during Sunday night's two-hour broadcast of the CBS reality competition's finale.


The "Friends and Country Singers" team fell short of claiming the $1 million grand prize to "Hockey Brothers" Bates Battaglia and Anthony Battaglia, who were the first team to cross the Race's finish line in Washington D.C. and therefore crowned champions.

"Newlyweds" Max Bichler and Katie Bichler finished in second place, and "Roller Derby Moms" Mona Egender and Beth Bandimere finished third.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Caroline and Jennifer talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the concluding portion of their interview. Click here to read the first half.

Check our The Amazing Race homepage for exclusive interviews with the rest of the finale's teams.


Reality TV World: Some viewers have been saying they think you girls put your friendship with Bates and Anthony and some of the other teams before strategy or the competition itself. So it sounds like you disagree with that, right?

Jennifer Kuhle: Yeah, 100% percent. I mean, I think in the beginning, we kind of helped everybody more than they probably showed. And then as the teams started getting eliminated, we were like, "Okay, we really need to focus on helping ourselves."

But we never really had a chance to do anything to Bates and Anthony to get them out, like we never got to the U-Turn before anybody else. So, you know, looking back, it's like we weren't really -- even if we had the chance to get them eliminated, we didn't.

Reality TV World: Could you girls talk a little more about your relationships with Bates and Anthony? I remember at one point in the season Caroline, you mentioned that Jennifer had a big crush on Bates. Jennifer, could you talk about that a little bit, and Caroline, were you into Anthony at all?    

Caroline Cutbirth: Yeah, I said Jen had a crush on Bates and I was kind of with Anthony. We called them "our Race boyfriends." We love them. We clearly think they're so cute. We love their personalities. But we really weren't trying to like start a relationship. And so, it was mainly just -- we flirted and there was some chemistry there, but it's not like a mad, true love, you know? So yeah, it was just for fun.


Jennifer Kuhle: And we were just buds out there. I mean, we joked that they were our Race boyfriends, but they were just really cool guys and we had fun with them and the same thing with Max and Katie. We loved them too, and of course they played up the boys and us because it seemed like it was a romance, but we just really were friends.

Reality TV World: So that explains what happened after the show between you guys then, right? Because when I talked to Bates and Anthony earlier, they said neither of you ended up dating either of them, so it was clearly just a friendship all along.

Caroline Cutbirth: Ah, yes.

Jennifer Kuhle: Yeah, unfortunately.

Caroline Cutbirth: I was hoping to fall madly in love, but it just didn't work out. (Laughs)


Jennifer Kuhle: She tried. She tried, actually. She went to one of Anthony's games, and she tried. (Laughs)

Caroline Cutbirth: Yeah, it was a Race romance.

Reality TV World: You girls were part of the majority alliance against Joey and Meghan and Mona and Beth. Would you say that was due to personal or strategic reasons? Joey and Meghan admitted to me last week it felt personal to them, so I didn't know your take on that.

Caroline Cutbirth: Actually, I just randomly ran into [John Erck] and [Jessica Hoel] the other day in Key West, and we were talking about The Amazing Race. Jen and I, we never went out to start an alliance. Joey and Meghan and Mona and Beth and Jessica and John from the very, very beginning, they all formed an alliance, like they started the whole alliance thing.

So the fact they think it was personal is funny to me because they're the ones that formed their alliance! And we kind of formed an alliance out of just -- all the remaining teams kind of formed an alliance because they were already in one. So they sort of did it to themselves, which I think is hilarious.


Jennifer Kuhle: I know, and the funny thing was with Max and Katie, we became close with them because we never saw any of the others teams for like the first three legs because we were always last -- fighting with them for last. So that's kind of how we became close with them.

And then, you know, Bates and Anthony we loved right off the bat. And so, like Caroline said, they were really the ones who started the alliance, and then we were just the ones that were left and we happened to be the ones that stayed in longer than their alliance, you know?

Caroline Cutbirth: Well it's so funny too, sorry, I'm getting heated about this. I don't know why it's got me so fired up. Because Meghan and Joey, and especially John and Jessica, and Mona and Beth, they were all really intense teams. Like, they were definitely more focused on not making friends, I felt like.

Jennifer Kuhle: Yeah, they didn't really talk to us at all or anybody else except their alliance, so we just didn't even have a chance to become friends with them.

Caroline Cutbirth: Yeah, so the fact is that they did it to themselves. They started the alliance train, so, you know.


Reality TV World: How do you think you girls would have done in that final task in which the teams had to search for globes in the ball pit and line them up by the order of which they had visited the countries. How prepared were you for a task like that, had you been studying or taking good notes along the way?

Jennifer Kuhle: We had been, yeah. Caroline, she loves taking notes. (Laughs) She will write down everything five times, and we knew where the countries were and stuff. And so, I think that we would've been fine at that challenge. It definitely looked hard though. Anthony thinks it would've killed us.

Reality TV World: How about the baseball one? Were you girls sad you didn't get the chance to dress up as a giant baseball mascot? (Laughs)

Jennifer Kuhle: Not really.

Caroline Cutbirth: No, we're not. (Laughs) I mean, that was a cool experience though. Every task is pretty neat if you get to do it, because when are you going to do that again -- ever?

Reality TV World: What do you girls think you would have done with the $1 million had you won it? Any ideas?


Jennifer Kuhle: I would've bought a house.

Caroline Cutbirth: You know, I probably would've bought a house as well.

Reality TV World: How were you cast on The Amazing Race and was it your first time applying for the show?

Jennifer Kuhle: Yeah, it was our first time applying for it! And our friend told us about it and we called our agent and were like, "We want to do the Race!" And I don't know how we made it through, but we did.

Reality TV World: Would you consider doing an all-stars edition if given the opportunity?

Jennifer Kuhle: For sure. 100% percent.


Above is the concluding portion of Jennifer and Caroline's exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Click here to read the first half.

Check our The Amazing Race homepage for exclusive interviews with the rest of the finale's teams.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski