Exclusive: 'The Amazing Race: All-Stars' runner-ups Jennifer Wayne and Caroline Cutbirth talk (Part 1)

"The Country Singers" Jennifer Wayne and Caroline Cutbirth finished The Amazing Race: All-Stars, the CBS reality competition's 24th overall season and third all-stars edition, in second place during Sunday night's finale.


Caroline and Jennifer lost the $1 million grand prize to winners David O'Leary and Connor O'Leary, who are "Father and Son Cancer Survivors." Third place went to "Newlyweds" Brendon Villegas and Rachel Reilly.

After 22 cities, nine countries and more than 23,000 miles, Caroline and Jennifer seemed to lose by only a matter of short moments.

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

Reality TV World: Congratulations on second place, girls. I know it's not first but it's still an accomplishment.


Jennifer Wayne: I know, we were four seconds away from being millionaires!

Reality TV World: Oh wow. You lost by literally only four seconds? I was going to ask how long after Dave and Connor you got to that Pit Stop mat.

Caroline Cutbirth: It was four seconds. The thing that was crazy is, we were in the cab at the cluebox and then Dave and Connor passed us, so we didn't really think anything of it. But the person who pulled the clue first got to jump first.

And so the fact that they pulled the clue first, I was in the helicopter five seconds before Dave, but they pulled the clue first so they took off first. So literally, we counted last night, and we got there four seconds after them. So we were just like, "Oh my gosh! We were four seconds away from a million dollars."

Reality TV World: Caroline, when you landed after skydiving, you seemed so excited and you were telling Jennifer to run really quickly with you. Just to clarify, were you unaware in that moment Dave and Connor had finished in first place or were you aware of that and you were just rushing to congratulate the guys at the finish line?


Caroline Cutbirth: I think I just blacked out, literally, when I was skydiving. The whole thing is such a blur! I have never been that amped up on adrenaline in my entire life, like, I felt like I drank 1,000 Red Bulls.

And I think when I landed, I didn't quite -- I knew that we hadn't won. I knew that there was the mat, I could see it all. But for some delusional minute, I think I still thought we still had some random hope. I just, I don't know! I wanted to haul butt and get there and see what was going on.

Reality TV World: And Jennifer, did that feel like the longest wait of your life, standing there on the ground? What was going through your mind?

Jennifer Wayne: Well, you know what? It was kind of heartbreaking because -- of all the finales I've watched, there's always some kind of challenge at the end, like a mental challenge or a memory challenge -- something that you could [use] catch up to [another team]. And so, that final thing was like, whoever jumped out of that plane won the Race.

And it came down to whoever pulled the clue first could jump out first. And so, it was kind of like disheartening knowing that there was no way to catch up.


Reality TV World: So it sounds like you girls were really prepared for some type of memory task or really challenging task at the end.

Caroline Cutbirth: Oh yeah, we had been like really studying up on memorizing everything and covering all those countries that we've been to. We kind of felt like we knew everything.

Jennifer Wayne: And also, for us, physically, we were probably weaker than the other teams. But my favorite thing in the world is a memory challenge or a puzzle or anything of that capacity.

Caroline Cutbirth: That's Jen talking, because that is definitely not my favorite thing in the world. (Laughs)

Jennifer Wayne: But, so I was hoping that there was going to be something where we could really excel and win the Race, you know, some kind of memory challenge.


Caroline Cutbirth: ... Or at least something that would give us a chance to catch up. There was no -- it was done. It was decided. It was over once you got in the plane. There was nothing else to do. That was just hard.

Reality TV World: Jennifer, you were shown saying you went to high school in Las Vegas. Did your familiarity with Vegas end up helping you two in the final leg at all, or did the advantage not actually come in handy?

Jennifer Wayne: It helped a little bit because that [helicopters station] was in Henderson, which is a little kind of suburb outside of Vegas, so [our cab driver] didn't know where Maverick [Helicopters] was to begin with, but I'm like, "It's in Henderson."

So at least we knew the direction of where to go. And then he had a phone and we looked it up on the phone, and he actually called one of his co-workers. Our cab driver was awesome.

Caroline Cutbirth: His name was Maverick?


Jennifer Wayne: No, the place's name was Maverick.

Caroline Cutbirth: Oh, sorry! I thought our cab driver's name was Maverick, which would've been too cool! (Laughs)

Jennifer Wayne: So, it did help a little bit, but at the end of the day, no, not really. Because we got picked up in that car and we weren't driving, and all the challenges, we didn't really have to know Vegas. So it didn't really help.

Reality TV World: Speaking of your cab driver, Brendon and Rachel obviously tried to steal him. When you learned of that incident, what was your reaction and do you think they crossed the line with that move?

Jennifer Wayne: Well, that's...

Caroline Cutbirth: Nothing shocked us with the Brenchels. (Laughs)


Jennifer Wayne: To us, we weren't even worried about what they were doing. We were just like, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for staying!" We were like so grateful to the cab driver. We were kind of more focused on his actions rather than theirs.

Caroline Cutbirth: Jen and I would just never do that -- even racing for a million dollars. I just don't think we could ever do that, because it just feels, I don't know. We don't like to play like that, but we don't care. I was shocked. I actually didn't realize how much they had tried to get our cab. We love our cab driver for sticking with us!

Reality TV World: Do you guys have any insight as to why the driver stuck around? When I talked to Dave and Connor earlier, they kind of joked around about how the cab driver probably didn't want to leave two pretty girls behind.

Caroline Cutbirth: (Laughs)

Jennifer Wayne: (Laughs) That's funny. I think that he was just being a stand-up guy. He had driven us and we asked him to wait, and he said he would wait for us, and I think he was just being a stand-up guy, which I think is awesome. There should be more people like that.

Caroline Cutbirth: I wish we could go find him in Vegas and give him $1,000 of our $12,000 each that we get. (Laughs)


Reality TV World: You girls never finished a leg in first place this season. How frustrating was that for you to never win a leg, and do you think because you didn't finish in first, it actually presented you with an advantage of some kind because you never had a target on your backs?

Caroline Cutbirth: Oh yeah. We were the least threatening team of all the teams, so I think that worked to our advantage a lot, because people never worried about us, so we just kind of slid under the radar.

Jennifer Wayne: Which is fine for us! We were not about to go advertising that we were sliding under the radar. (Laughs) We needed to use whatever we could get.

Caroline Cutbirth: Yup! And so, I think we did get really close to winning several legs of the Race and luck just wasn't on our side, and we were SO close in the final one. But, you know, it just wasn't in the cards for us. And now we're the winners of The Amazing Race because we had won the record of not winning the most legs while racing the most.

Jennifer Wayne: Which is not what we wanted to win. (Laughs)

Caroline Cutbirth: Yeah. (Laughs)


Reality TV World: That's still awesome in some kind of weird way. (Laughs)

Jennifer Wayne: Yeah!

Caroline Cutbirth: Yeah, exactly. (Laughs) We hold the record somewhere.

Reality TV World: Even Phil Keoghan mentioned that a lot of teams had underestimated you girls this season. Did you girls surprise yourselves with how well you did in the Race, and also, what would you say to those people who try to undermine your success by saying you got to the end by riding other teams' coattails and getting non-elimination legs?

Jennifer Wayne: Well the funniest thing to me is, you can't just ride someone's coattails on The Amazing Race. You have to do all the challenges, even if you get help, you still have to do it. You have to sprint, you have to get the flights. So people that think we just got picked up and carried along, it's crazy that someone would think that.

But also, we helped a lot of teams and they didn't show it. We helped tremendously with, for example, the sewing. Connor hadn't even gotten started on his shirt yet. He was lost and I helped him start and got him going. And then I gave Dave the answer on the Spanish steps.


There were so many things that we did that weren't shown, and they only showed the times that we got help. So I guess that's kind of what -- that was the editing. I guess they wanted us to look like the girls that, the dumb blondes. (Laughs) Which is fine. We don't care. We got second, so anyone can think whatever they want!

Above is the first half of Caroline and Jennifer's exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion. Also, check our The Amazing Race 24 page for more interviews with the season's Final 3 teams.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski