The Amazing Race: All-Stars eliminated Joseph "Joey" Graceffa and Meghan Caramena during Sunday night's third episode of the CBS reality competition's 24th overall season and third all-stars edition. 

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The "Best Friends" team and YouTube personalities became the third pair eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's third Pit Stop at Tanjun Aru Water Village in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, in last place.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Joey and Meghan talked about their disappointing The Amazing Race: All-Stars experience. Below is the first half of their interview. Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion. 

Reality TV World: How long after Brendon Villegas and Rachel Reilly did you finally arrive at the Pit Stop?

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: They never really told us, but we were like 40 minutes to an hour [behind].

Reality TV World: Meghan, you made a comment at the end of last night's show that suggested you didn't feel like all-stars yourselves, like the veterans were in a different class than you although you considered yourselves a tough team. Could you talk about that a little bit? Did you feel you were at a disadvantage for some reason this season?

Meghan Caramena: You know, the thing was, as Joey and I were talking about it more, we were at a disadvantage to the people who -- it was their third time running it. But for everyone else, it was just like, no one made mistakes.

The challenges were a lot easier this time, so if you don't make a mistake, how you started is basically how you were going to finish unless some miracle happened. So I think we were all-star material. It was just the way that the legs were set up this time. We were expecting it to be a lot harder and different, and it wasn't. It was just weird.

Reality TV World: Yeah, I was going to ask you whether you thought departing the second Pit Stop in last place pretty much sealed your fate in the leg. Because like you were saying, most legs usually allow opportunities to catch up or get ahead, but this leg made it seem like you were doomed to be behind the pack from the start.

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: Yeah!

Meghan Caramena: How ridiculous is that?! Three hours behind and three teams?

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: It was like, you knew who was going to get eliminated -- it was one of those three teams. Where is the excitement in that?

Meghan Caramena: It's never been like that.

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: And their bad story was that there's a chance that none of the challenges were really keeping people behind that much, like, we were still probably like, in the end, John Erck and Jessica Hoel were probably two hours still behind the other teams. There was never really a chance to catch up to the first flight.

Meghan Caramena: Mhmm.

Reality TV World: So your flight literally arrived three hours after the first one landed?

Meghan Caramena: Yep, that's what I think.

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: Yeah, three hours.

Reality TV World: Wow. So Joey, how long did it take you to do the Roadblock task and was it fairly easy?

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: It was so easy, like, it was just like, (laughs) I don't know, walking backwards down a hill. There was no challenge to it unless you missed the clue, but only one team did that. There was nothing challenging about it. It was just, "Do a cool thing."

Reality TV World: So it sounds like in general, you just didn't feel challenged thus far in The Amazing Race season -- that didn't hold true for just the third leg.

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: Well, yes. They weren't challenging enough for people to make mistakes, which is kind of the point of the Race -- to give people the opportunity to pass a team that -- nothing was challenging enough for a team to mess up.

Meghan Caramena: Yeah, I mean, our first leg is such a prime example. We got to China to look through wedding dresses and then do five backflips and that's it? Then we were done? I was like, "What?!" And then the second [leg] we were in China again, which was weird, because that early in the Race, you never really stay in the same place twice.

And then traveling to Malaysia, Malaysia was so much fun, but it was just a different kind of race. It was nothing that we had watched before or seen before or experienced. So I think we were really thrown off.

Reality TV World: That is strange especially considering it's an all-stars season. You'd think the legs would be twice as difficult or something.

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: Yeah, we were expecting like double legs where we would just keep racing, and we thought we were going to be exhausted.

Meghan Caramena: Mhmm. It's kind of strange how they got so many teams out early on. They usually try to keep, especially with all-stars, they try to keep them -- or it feels like they try to keep them -- on just a little bit longer and then they start doing the eliminations. But I don't know.

Reality TV World: Your taxi apparently left you guys at the Roadblock and you appeared to run around for awhile looking for another cab. How much time elapsed because of that incident?

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: Yeah, it was funny because, actually at the airport when we were like talking about what we were expecting, we were like, "Oh yeah, I guess we'll be able to catch up with the other teams because they're not going to hold their taxis."

And then we started thinking about other alternatives, like, "Oh actually, there's like a bus station right near where we're getting dropped off. We're probably going to take a bus to our next location."

So I was looking up bus times, because we thought there was going to be an equalizer up ahead. We thought it was really ridiculous, the fact that we're three hours behind six teams. We thought that was a joke, so we were like, "Oh there will be an equalizer. No worries."

So we start thinking of that idea and totally forget about the fact, "Let's hold our taxi." And our taxi that we got was really slow, so we ended up 10 minutes behind the other teams at the waterfall. So right when we got there, we were just like, "Oh crap, we have to catch up!" So we didn't even think to hold our taxi.

Meghan Caramena: Well, we wouldn't have wanted to hold that taxi anyways. It almost broke down on the way to the waterfall. It was so bad. We left at the same time as everyone else and got there 10 minutes later. It was just kind of a good thing. We still would've came in last if we kept that taxi.

Reality TV World: There were five teams this season that were recycled from The Amazing Race's 22nd edition, and you guys were obviously one of them. There were also three teams from the show's eighteenth season. Do you think that gave you guys an advantage or disadvantage? Maybe that allowed you to form instant alliances or presented a problem since other teams could do that as well?

Meghan Caramena: We were friends with John and Jessica. A lot of the LA Racers, like everyone kind of -- once you're on the Race, there's just a really tight community of people, so we were able to talk to Brendon and Rachel before all-stars even happened.

And we were always close with John and Jessica, so it's not like it made things easier for us, it was just like everyone was kind of friends with everyone. So that's just how it was.

Reality TV World: I was going to ask you about that. The first time you two raced, you were almost sort of the outcasts of the season. I remember you felt like none of the other teams wanted to really help or work with you. Clearly, this time around was different.

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: Yeah, for sure! This time was like, I wish the social aspect of this season was how it was for us the first time, because it was very mentally draining our first time around.

Meghan Caramena: Yeah.

Joseph "Joey" Graceffa: It felt like we were back in high school and being bullied. But all the Racers were just really cool [this time] and it made it a lot more fun.

Meghan Caramena: Definitely.

Above is the first half of Joey and Meghan's exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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