Race Losers Speak Out!

Chip and Reichen may receive all the glory (and the million-dollar prize), but finishing The Amazing Race within the top three is a reward in and of itself. Of course, Jon and Kelly and David and Jeff may disagree with that statement. Here, the four also-rans enjoy their moment in the TV Guide Online spotlight.

TV Guide Online: Are you all happy with the way your teams were portrayed on the show?
Kelly: It was dead on!

TVGO: It didn't bother you or Jon that you were kind of the villains of the series?
Jon: I don't necessarily think we were villains; I think we were the comic relief. David and Jeff and Chip and Reichen aren't funny at all. (Laughs).
Kelly: You know what it was? Jon and I were ourselves and that got us in a lot of trouble. We crack on people we like and we crack on people we don't like. You can't click with everybody, but we clicked with 99 percent of the teams on the show. Also, Jon knows he has to get me through certain situations, and he was doing whatever he could to get me through it. Laughter was the best key.

TVGO: How about you, David and Jeff? You were sort of anonymous in the beginning but you came into your own in the final legs.
Jeff: I guess from an editing standpoint, we didn't create any drama early on, and because we were going to make it to the last leg, why bring us in early? Other teams had drama between them that are getting eliminated earlier. I'd say from India on they were showing who David and I really were. In the first episodes, they were showing a lot of mistakes, like exaggerating the fact that we got lost in Dodgers stadium. Everyone made multiple mistakes each leg, and they seemed to highlight us.

TVGO: What teams did you bond with during the race?
David: The clowns were great guys. They were very generous to us, like when they gave us food on the train in India. That's one of the reasons we waited for them after the ice river challenge in South Korea. You want to do good for people who have done good for you. Plus, they would have been thoroughly screwed if we had left.
Jon: For us, we bonded with Reichen and Chip the most. We also spent a lot of time with David and Jeff. The clowns were great, too. I think everyone was wishing they would win. We actually thought if it ever even came down to us and the clowns running to the finish line, we would take a dive. That's how much we liked them and how much we thought they could use the money more than anyone else.

TVGO: What was your best asset as a team?
Kelly: Our humor.
Jon: My ass.
Kelly: Yeah, I sure looked at it a lot! He was always ahead of me.
Jon: I kept on trying to distract Reichen and Chip with it, but it didn't work.

TVGO: By the way, Jon, did you realize the camera was on when you made that orgasm comment at the Le Mans racetrack?
Jon: I forgot I said that. I had some friends over to watch that episode, and they had their little kids with them. And they're like "Earmuffs!" After I saw it, I was like, "Hmm, I hope my mom doesn't take offense."
Kelly: I have to defend Jon because he's a big analogy guy. Everything he does or says has to do with an analogy. And usually it's sports and sex; there's no in between. He had a sex one that day.

TVGO: Knowing what you know now, what's one thing you would do differently if you were to run the race over again?
David: I would drive that Mercedes right through those gates at Dodger stadium.
Jeff: Yeah, if they wanted drama, that would have done it. Just blasting through that gate, getting to the airport, making our mark.
Jon: I wouldn't really change much if we did it over again. I wish we had caught the first taxi cab in Phoenix, that's pretty much it.

TVGO: Was there a moment that we didn't see in the finished series that you wish had been included?
Kelly: You know when they showed us sleeping all the time in the airport? We would actually do our homework to a certain point. We had rules before we went on the race. One was that we didn't take connections that were less than 20 minutes. We're very well traveled and we knew that was usually fairly impossible to do. So that was really the only thing. Everything else was so freaking true that it's scary.
David: I thought it was pretty funny when I talked about 15 girls into giving me their lunch money in the subway in Vienna. We needed money, you know? That was pretty classic. I don't know why it wasn't in there, because it was caught on tape and everything. Maybe it was just too distasteful.

TVGO: Finally, what are you all up to now?
David: Jeff and I are both pretty entrepreneurial. Jeff is into real estate development in Manhattan Beach, developing and designing multiple properties. I own a company in L.A. and I did some acting previously. My manager is actually in touch with me; she gave me a call and said there are a handful of very big agencies that want to get together. So if that falls in my lap, I would obviously entertain the idea.
Kelly: I write children's books and I just finished one that CBS has to okay for me. It's about what I've taken away from the race, though not about the race itself. Hopefully, that will be out soon.
Jon: I work in real estate down in Miami Beach. So anyone who is looking to buy a multi-million dollar property, contact me. We've also set the date for our wedding. It's on our five-year anniversary in the spring.