‘The Challenge: USA’: Biggest Quotes From Our Interviews With the Finalists

The inaugural season of The Challenge: USA has come to an end. The competition may have been close throughout much of the season, but the final ended up being too much of a, well, challenge, for some of the competitors. All but two finalists crossed the finish line, meaning that Survivor alumni Sarah Lacina and Danny McCray were crowned the champions. 

Following the finale, PopCulture.com got to chat with the winners and several of the Challenge: USA‘s finalists about their experiences on the reality show. Read on below to check out all of the major tea that they spilled. 

Sarah Addresses Tyson

Sarah Lacina and Tyson Apostol had a serious rivalry during the course of the season, and it seems as though their feud will carry on outside of the show. After the finale, Tyson said on his podcast on The Ringer that it was “heartbreaking” to see that Sarah was able to continue after she allegedly did not finish one of the last puzzles in the final while he was forced to quit for a similar situation. Naturally, Sarah didn’t take kindly to Tyson casting aspersions on her win. 

“It’s [par] for the course for Tyson. It is,” Sarah said. “I voted him out twice in Survivor. Dom and I overrule him on the Alyssa vote-in. The guy just cannot … he can’t stand to see me succeed.” She continued, “And it’s okay though, success comes with hate. And I mean, people don’t hate losers. So I guess if you’re a winner and you’re hated. But no, that actually pisses me off. Don’t ever question my integrity or even how dare you, those guys that produce the show, you really think that they would cross a line like that? Yeah, just that he would question that integrity, it really pisses me off.”

Enzo Apologizes to Desi

There’s one thing that many can agree on when it comes to The Challenge: USA final — Desi was robbed. She was forced to DQ after her partner for the first leg, Enzo Palumbo, quit. The Big Brother alum said that he did apologize to Desi during the final and also sent her an apology on Instagram after everything was all said and done. 

“Out there in Argentina, I apologized to her,” Enzo said. “And then I sent her a big long thing on Instagram. And she’s awesome. She’s awesome. But I know she wants to punch me in the face. I know she does. And I’ll let her. Spit on me, punch me in the face. Whatever is going to make you feel a little bit better, I’ll do it. I’ll accommodate you on that. She doesn’t deserve that. She’s a beast, and I think she had a really good chance to win this thing, and I took that from her, and that plagues me all the time. It messes with me all the time.”

Desi Speaks on Production

Desi, unfortunately, got the short end of the stick when Enzo’s quit led to her DQ. As she related to PopCulture.com, there was one point in which she thought that have been able to continue after a member of the production team urged her to get on the boat in order to “save” her “energy” for the “other legs” of the final. Alas, once she got to shore, they told her that she would not be able to continue. 

“So, they take us to shore, we get off the boat and then she’s like, ‘Oh, actually I had it wrong you are disqualified,’ which is what I thought it was initially, which is why I was pleading so hard,” Desi recalled. “So yeah, there was a little bit, there’s obviously a little bit of confusion there. There were other cameramen and producers that were like, ‘We tried to get it so you could keep going and be partnered with a female.’ But at the end of the day, I think it was all happening so quickly and they were behind schedule and a lot of elements happened.”

Alyssa Explains Cookout Move

Alyssa Lopez had quite the journey on The Challenge: USA. Months after appearing on Big Brother 23, she was forced to compete against many of the same individuals who duped her during the course of the season. Towards the beginning of The Challenge: USA, Alyssa was adamant about getting revenge against the Cookout and, particularly, her good friend, Xavier Prather. How does she feel about her big move against Xavier and the Cookout now?

“I will say when it came to the revenge aspect, it was strictly a game term for me. If a team beats you in this elimination or this game, you want to get them back. They say that in sports on ESPN, “They’re coming for revenge on this team,” Alyssa said. “That’s how I interpreted it. It was never deeper than that. Anytime I ever talked to anyone in the house about what the Cookout did, I explained exactly why they did it, what they did, how excited I was for it. I was the main advocate about it.”

Alyssa continued to say that the move was “more strategic” than anything else. She added, “I really wanted to show that I’m playing my own game and as soon as I took X out, no one was upset by it, as far as Survivor or the Amazing Race or Love Island, like, ‘Oh we don’t trust her.’ It was almost like I had more conversations with people. Survivor started talking anymore. Love Island did. Amazing Race did. I had so many more alliances outside of it. I really do think that move helped me get to how far I got. So I don’t regret doing it. 

Danny Talks Kiki

Danny’s wife, Kiki McCray, was basically an unofficial cast member on The Challenge: USA as the Survivor star frequently brought her up in confessionals. What did Kiki think about her husband’s big win? 

“Oh, she loved it. She loved it. She was absolutely excited,” Danny said. “Of course, she gave me the, I knew you were going to win, but there is no second place. All right. So don’t come back home telling me about all the mistakes you made for the reasons why you didn’t win because I heard that on Survivor. All right. So make sure you come back with the win, but she was super happy. She was super happy. It was a dream of hers and I was able to get it done. So happy wife, happy life.”