Danny, what was relationship management like from your perspective? It doesn’t seem like you were making as many enemies as Sarah, but you still had to deal with what ended up being a fairly cutthroat game.Danny: I think just going into it and being genuine helped me out. They didn’t show that me and Tyson were really close. They didn’t show me and Angela had this thing where she was supposed to go to LSU, where I went, but she ended up going to South Carolina. So we kind of bonded over the fact that we could have been at school together. I was cool with Cinco, cool with David. I think just having those genuine relationships and being able to laugh without having to talk game and feel like somebody’s scheming and plotting really allows people to open up to you. And then they feel that obligation to save you. So I think that just helped me throughout the game to where I didn’t have to win first place, because I had enough relationships to where I trusted that people wouldn’t throw me into elimination.Sarah, you came into the game with previous history, both good and bad, with Ben and Tyson. Talk to me about navigating those relationships.Sarah: It definitely made it really, really difficult. Because there was also tension between Ben and Tyson, not necessarily because of who they are, but because they’re competing against each other. Tyson’s winning; Ben wants to be winning. So it was definitely a messy situation. It sucks. I wish we all could have worked together. I didn’t know Ben was throwing Tyson’s name out there. And so I’m like, “Dude, I get it. You’re upset. But he’s in our alliance. You don’t have to like him, but let’s not throw his name out there.“Danny: Sarah’s game would have been a lot easier had Ben not been on the show with her. I’ll just say if Ben wasn’t there, I think Sarah’s experience on the show would have been totally different. And that’s just the outside looking in on a relationship. Sarah: I agree with that.Danny, lastly, I gotta ask about the Kiki of it all. Was it your idea or production’s to put in a shoutout to her every week on the show?Danny: So everybody says, “Why did you want to do The Challenge?” And my honest answer is, that I asked my wife if I could go on Survivor. She said, “Okay. What she didn’t tell me was she saw ex-Survivor players now being on the challenge. So she said, “I’ll make a deal with you. If I allow you to go on Survivor, that means you’re qualified to go on The Challenge. So if they call ,you have to go on, because that’s my dream.” So when I explained the story, everybody’s like, “Okay, well, what would your wife say in this moment? What would she tell you to do if she was watching the show?” So that’s how we started, and then I think it just caught fire after that.Next, read our interview with David Alexander, who was eliminated in The Challenge: USA Episode 10.
