'The Amazing Race' Rocked by Major Elimination Controversy

Mother and son duo, Angie and Danny, were eliminated for something that was out of their control.

By Brenda Alexander

Season 36 participants of The Amazing Race, Angie and Danny Butler, had an elimination out of their control. Fans were stunned by the choice. The mother-son duo had a chance at beating out Ricky Rotandi and Cesar Aldrete for the first-place finish during the May 1, episode. Unfortunately, they lost their production crew along the way. Official rules make it so that teams can't go on without their camera crews. As a result, Angie and Danny had to sit and wait at the final detour as other teams passed them as they waited for the crew. In the episode, it appeared the production crew eventually caught up with Angie and Danny, but the mother and son revealed that wasn't the case.

"They had me say the line like, 'Hey, our crew is here.' Our crew wasn't there," Danny exclusively told Us Weekly in an interview. "I don't know why they decided — maybe it's because we had waited so long — but they just grabbed another crew that was already there and [were] like, 'Hey, they're going to take you down to the beach.' And so probably about 30 minutes into the detour I think is when we ended up seeing our cameramen again."

Danny has a theory on why the production crew was lost. "It was a local driving them. I think the local literally just got lost for an hour and a half, even though the challenge was, like, 16 minutes [or] 17 minutes from [where we lost them]," he said.

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The crew ended up filming Angie and Danny during the final detour.  Producers decided that she and Danny should wait for their own team. "There's all these meetings going on because it's unprecedented," she explained. "And to their defense, I don't think anybody knew what to do. So, it was a learning experience."

Angie and Danny have no ill feelings about the ordeal. "If we had been eliminated because of something mom had done, I feel like mom would've been really sad [and felt like], 'I let you down,'" Danny explained. "I was a superfan. I was like, 'I can't let my friends clown me for something I do. I can't be eliminated on a roadblock or getting lost.' And to go out in a way that we had zero control over [was better]."

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