MTVRaise your hand if you were grinning like an idiot as you watched Jordan and Sarah climb to victory in The Challenge: Battle of the Exes 2 finale last night?!
The adrenaline-junkie exes found themselves to be the perfect team this season, and though they made a lot of enemies along the way to their big finish in first place (most notably sending veterans Johnny Bananas and Nany into elimination right before the finals instead of rookies Jenna and Jay), they said they could not be more proud of how they played the game this season.
E! News got the newly-crowned champs on the line to discuss everything from their first win to why they aren't paying any attention to the sore losers from this season. Check out the interview below!
Congrats on your first The Challenge victory! You must be feeling pretty great right about now.
Sarah: I wish I could bottle that feeling. It was the best feeling in the world.
Jordan: It was so surreal.
Walk me through the moments when you were climbing those last few feet on the mountain, right before you touched the flag, clinching your victory. What was running through your mind?
Jordan: I was so surprised at how good it felt. Not to sound, I mean, coming from me how do you not sound douchey? But I've won a lot of things growing up, and you go into this thinking it's not a real sport or whatever, but when you're up there, and finishing something that most of the people in this world can't accomplish, especially in the time we did it, it felt so good. It's one of my top three moments of all time. When you hit that last 10-15 feet, because you're not there yet but you know it's inevitable and you can't be caught, we both just had these big, stupid smiles on our faces the whole time. Nothing hurt anymore, we weren't tired, we weren't hungry, we just couldn't get there fast enough.
Sarah: I couldn't believe I was just a few feet away from winning money. That, for me, it was all about making enough money to go to grad school. Winning was the difference between going to an OK grad school or going to a really, really, really good one. This is going to give me the future I always dreamed of! Plus, I knew this was the last Challenge I was going to do. I'm about to get married, I want to start having kids, and I want to start the next chapter of my life. This closed the book on my whole Real World and Challenge experience. And it was like, "Ha ha, I told you I could do it!" to all the people who were doubting me.
It seemed like the hate towards you two got really intense right before the finals.
Sarah: Oh yeah. Watching it back now, some people talked a lot of s---. But clearly I was right and they were wrong. There's nothing more I love than that, ask my fiancé!
Jordan, what are you planning to do with your prize money?
Jordan: I'm going to invest most of it, but one splurge I spent a bit on was this custom motorcycle I'm getting built. It's an old-school vintage racer that I designed.
We know this is Sarah's last Challenge, how about you?
Jordan: I don't know if this is it for me, but I want to work on my career. The past two years I've been working really hard on acting and modeling. I'm going to pursue that for a while and maybe not do as much reality for the time being. But you never know, we'll see.
You both played a very smart game and that clearly paid off in the end but you definitely made a few enemies in doing so along the way. Are you worried those grudges are going to carry over into real life now that the show is over?
Sarah: Why on earth would I be concerned about how these people feel about me? They affect my live 0 percent. Johnny and I have maybe hung out four times in real life, and it's always during those two weeks before a Challenge begins so he can get me under his wing and use me as need be. How good of friends are we, really?! And hey, we all signed up for a game. Just because I made a move that benefited me and my partner, and didn't help out another team who was, by the way, our competition, doesn't mean I'm like, strangling little puppies and tripping old ladies on the street. Come on!
Jordan: As far as The Challenge goes and creating enemies outside the house, anybody that has any wits about them knows that what happens in that house is not real life. It's a game. Anyone who takes game decisions outside and into real life with them and hold grudges, they don't get it and they probably weren't going hang out with me in real life anyways. So it's like, there's nothing lost there. Some people can't separate the game from real life. Johnny Bananas, you are a character on a show, dude! You don't have to be that guy all the time. Just be your f---ing-self! Some of these people take themselves so seriously and they take that house so seriously that they forget it's not real life.
After you made that move, the other teams started attacking you guys on a really personal level, that to me, was absolutely so nasty and shocking. I couldn't believe the immature things you had to put up with.
Jordan: Oh yeah, it was just validating our opinions of them as people. Ask yourself: What kind of person goes to those types of malicious things to say about somebody because they got voted in on a game?! That should tell you a lot about the type of people we had to deal with. At the end of the day, for Sarah and I, it just validated everything.
Sarah: For me, they were screaming and yelling all these things at me and I was, in a way, grateful. Not because I enjoy being attacked like that but because, as a psychology student, I was like, "This is confirming every single thing I just learned over the past four years." I was analyzing everything they were all doing in my head and it was fascinating. And me crying, that wasn't from the name calling, that came from being ostracized and locked out and away from the group, and emotionally exhausted from going so hard for so long. I just crashed. But none of what they said fazed me at all. Let them talk, it just made them look ridiculous. Nia looked so petty.
Jordan: Same story, different season. She does this every single season. I don't get why everyone is so surprised. We've seen this before! That's who she really is!
Sarah: She's a monster! It was just monstrous behavior.
Jordan: She does a show, she blows up, she goes on the aftershow to talk about how much she's learned and grown as a person, and then does it again.
Sarah: It's sad.
How did it feel knowing she got sent home right before the finals because of her actions against you?
Jordan: You know, I wanted her to get her ass handed to her by that final because she wouldn't have finished. Although it's better for us since if she wouldn't have finished, we would have been the only damn team to finish and that would have looked like s--t so thanks, Nia, for taking yourself out! But oh man, imagine the embarrassment for her. "I'm an athlete! I'm an athlete!" She wouldn't have made it much further than Jenna, 100 percent. I would put all my winnings on that bet. I wanted her there just so she could screw herself in front of millions of people.
Sarah: It's karma. Doesn't the universe have the most amazing way of working out?
What did you think of The Challenge finale? Do you think Jordan and Sarah played a perfect game? Let us know in the comments section below!