'The Amazing Race' team Jazmine Lewis and Danielle Littleton talk (Part 2)

The Amazing Race eliminated Jazmine Lewis and Danielle Littleton during Friday night's broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 27th season.


The best friends became the fourth team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's fifth Pit Stop at Masuwe Private Game Reserve in Zimbabwe in last place.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Jazmine and Danielle talked about their The Amazing Race experience and what went wrong. Below is the concluding portion. Click here to read the first half. 

Reality TV World: If you two had made a deal with Tanner Kloven and Josh Ahern to get their Express Pass, would you even believe they'd honor that agreement and hand it over when they were supposed to? When I talked to Ernest Phillip and Jin Lao earlier this season, they told me they wouldn't have trusted those two guys enough.

Jazmine Lewis: We really had a bond with Texas and when we were at the airport and stuff -- things they wouldn't necessarily show on TV -- they really looked out for us, and so I knew that we could trust their word, because we were kind of on their side. So it's like, "Why would they lie to us?" You know?


And it's like we can trust their word because the Green Team did after the U-Turn and they could've U-Turned them... you know, so it's just all -- I think [Texas] would have if they would have said that. 

Danielle Littleton: The one thing about the Texas guys are they are real standup guys. You can tell that they are, like, they honestly made a deal with the whole entire cast, besides the Green Team, saying, "Whoever U-Turns the Green Team is going to get the Express Pass."

So everyone knew and that's one of the reasons why [Tiffany Chantell and Krista Debono] probably put the picture of the Green Team on the board, because they let everyone know, like, "We want to get the Green Team out."

[Josh and Tanner said], "Whoever is going to U-Turn the Green Team or whoever is going to U-Turn us so we can cancel out the board is going to get the Express Pass." And so with the whole entire cast knowing that, they had no other choice but to honor their word, because everyone already knew the rules of the U-Turn and Express Pass.

Reality TV World: Did it surprise you Tanner and Josh gave their Express Pass to Denise Williams and James Corley? That came as a surprise to me because we haven't seen much of those two teams being friends or having formed an alliance.


Jazmine Lewis: Yeah, I mean, we loved "Team Alabama" so they were deserving of it as well, but it was kind of just like, well, they had to decide on the mat who they were going to give the Express Pass to. So it was kind of like, "Oh, okay. I guess I get it." (Laughs)

Danielle Littleton: Yeah, the way I kind of saw it from watching the episode back is that -- I was unsure when we were racing like, "What? Why did they give it to them?" But watching it back, it kind of makes sense. From the beginning, the Cheerleaders and "Team Texas" and us, we all kind of just, like, enjoyed each other. We hung out and stuff.

And so after they explained it a little bit on the car ride, it made sense, because they didn't really want to play favorites with anybody and it wasn't like anyone U-Turned the Green Team.

So, it wasn't like, "Okay, we're giving it to the Cheerleaders because they U-Turned the Green Team." It didn't matter. So, it was like, I think they didn't want to play favorites and I think "Team Alabama" was a neutral decision for them at that point.

Jazmine Lewis: Yeah.


Reality TV World: Why did you girls initially decide to do the "Crocs" task instead of canoes and how long did that take you to complete?

Jazmine Lewis: Right when we got our clue from Danielle jumping off the cliff, we read either crocodiles or canoes. So, in actuality, the clue said that we needed to just feed a crocodile, and I mean, they're hungry creatures, so what? Are we going to turn them down to eat?

So we thought that would be the quickest and most efficient path. And so we went as fast as we could to get there because there was only one cage. So that's why we decided to do it. And it probably took about 15 minutes with changing. They ate within seconds. So it was probably a 15-minute task.

Danielle Littleton: Yeah, and I knew us paddling a canoe -- or whatever that thing was -- it was going to be a struggle for us. (Laughs) That was one of my worries. That's one of the things we didn't kind of go over before we went on the Race, and I was like, "If we have to paddle something, it is not going to be good." So we knew that that was not going to be the one for us.

Reality TV World: On the topic of conversations you two had before the Race, how did your experience on the show differ from your expectations going into it? And taking that into account, how would you better prepare if you were to race again?


Jazmine Lewis: Before the Race, based on watching previous episodes, we knew it was going to be a lot of physical activity. So it was about staying in shape but also about strategic thinking and always being on your toes and thinking ahead of stuff and also having a Plan B -- and a Plan C if that doesn't work out.

And I think in preparation, we talked about our strengths and weaknesses. We talked about the different challenges, like what if there's this challenge? To eliminate wasting time, we knew who would do which challenge. We knew each other's strengths beforehand.

Danielle Littleton: I would say that the Race was all that and more than my expectations. I'd say the one thing I kind of didn't anticipate too much was just that I underestimated how mentally strong you have to be in this Race and the ability to kind of control your mind.

Like, when we were frantic about The Lion Encounter -- going back and forth between the Pit Stop and Lion Encounter -- the reason why we didn't read the clue was because we were so frantic.

Just taking a second to calm yourself down and control your mind and don't let that franticness overtake you. I think that's one of the things we definitely struggled with throughout the Race because there's many parts where we did let that happen.


And I don't know how we would really prepare for that but kind of just have a clear idea that, "No matter what, we're going to take a second. If we're frantic, count down from 10 and then make a decision or something." That would work.

Reality TV World: Logan Fazio and Chris Gordon almost got eliminated because they had their taxi driver blindly follow Cindy Chac and Rick Chac to the Roadblock, and Cindy and Rick got lost. Were you two ever guilty of doing that? And would you say that's a definite mistake to make in the Race or that most of the time it's probably a smart move and would work out?

Jazmine Lewis: I think seeing other teams around, for sure, is definitely like a comfortable thing. It's like, "Oh, we must be right because there's other teams here." But then it's sometimes good to kind of, if you're not too sure, go against the grain and kind of really just make your own decision.

Because we actually saw Rick and Cindy and the "Paparazzi" go the opposite way in a taxi and we were going the correct way to the cluebox to go to the cliff. And we were like, "What are they doing?!" We were like, "Oh well! They must've gone the wrong way," because our taxi driver was so sure he knew where to go for the gorge drop.

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

Danielle Littleton: This was our very first time applying for the show. We were cast on it because we made an audition video one summer as a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, and we applied for it when I knew I was going to be graduating from school and track. And so, we sent in an audition video and they loved us. That's how we got cast on!


Click here to read the first half of Jazmine and Danielle's exclusive interview with Reality TV World.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski