Exclusive

Cheating, Bullying and the Cabbie Curse: The Amazing Race Winners and Finalists Tell All

Exclusive! Kisha and Jen, Globetrotters, and Gary and Mallory address season 18's controversy and bad luck

By Drusilla Moorhouse May 09, 2011 8:35 PMTags
The Amazing Race, Phil Keoghan, Jen, Kisha Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS

On last night's feel-good finale of The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business, even third-place finisher Mallory was jumping with joy.

But while the contestants had plenty to celebrate—especially million-dollar winners LaKisha and Jennifer Hoffman—the 18th season also had its share of feuds, cheating accusations and taxi tragedies.

Read on to hear what the final three finishers had to say about the season's trials and tribulations...

THE CABBIE CURSE
The true story behind Gary and Mallory's million-dollar cab ride (because that's how much bungling driver Sterling cost them) is even more heartbreaking than we saw. "We got out of the airport [and] got in the first cab that we found," Mallory told us, "and they had a GPS and everything. Then this lady knocked on the window and said, 'I've been waiting on this cab for 30 minutes.' So being the polite people that we are, we got out of that cab and then got into Sterling's cab. Usually being polite pays off, but in this situation I think it might have lost us a million dollars."

CHEATING...AND HOW 'BOUT DEM COWBOYS?
"I think the fans need to know that one thing about the race is if you don't see a person/team getting penalized, it's not cheating," Herb "Flight Time" Lang pointed out. "When a team breaks the rules, that's when penalties happen. A lot of things they think is cheating is actually not cheating. If somebody takes your taxi, that's too bad, it's not against the rules. If a team doesn't get penalized for doing something that's not within the race rules, it's not cheating."

"We want to apologize to all the Cowboys [Jet and Cord McCoy] fans who hated us for U-turning them," added Flight Time, "but in The Amazing Race when it comes down to it, if it's us versus them, it's gotta be them. But we don't have any problem with the Cowboys. A lot of their fans badmouthed us because we eliminated them, but it was something we had to do to keep ourselves alive."

Both Jen and Kisha dispute fan assertions that the other racers targeted the Cowboys and deliberately withheld information from them. "When you're looking at it from a fan's perspective you have so much say on what you think is going on," Jen said, "but people aren't in the situation. So there can be speculation as to 'They were so against the Cowboys that they just shared information with everyone else and didn't include them in it—that's just completely trivial." "And erroneous," added Kisha.

ARE THE GLOBETROTTERS BULLIES?
"I do not think the Globetrotters bullied them," Kisha told us about the Goths' accusations, "and I was very disappointed at some of the interviews with Kent and Vyxsin afterwards. I'm a social work student so I take bullying very seriously, so I get offended when people use that word improperly." Jen added, "Kent actually talked to me about it, and apologized. I think he realized some things he said were absolutely incorrect...People make mistakes and we're not going to harbor ill feelings toward him, hopefully he's learned from what he's done."

Even Mallory said she was "disappointed" in Kent and Vyxsin's characterization of the Globetrotters. "We really think a lot of the Globetrotters and they're really great, nice guys," she said, "and I hope that hasn't changed anyone's opinion of them."

Flight Time himself was diplomatic about the feud: "I think they just got caught up in the moment and wanted to make some headlines. I guess they decided to choose us—who's a better team to pick than the Globetrotters, one of the most popular teams on the show?" But the Goths and Globetrotters have patched things up. "We've since spoken to them," said Flight Time, "and everything's cool."  

AQUAPHOBIA
To win The Amazing Race, Jen had to conquer her fear of water, which famously derailed her team in season 14. This time, she said, "I took maybe four weeks of swim classes at the YMCA preparing not to die, and it worked out. I just wanted to be prepared because that was definitely a big, big weakness of mine and I didn't want it to hinder our progress. Obviously it helped, even though I did have a little bit of anxiety going into the task—you see water and go 'Oh god, it's season 14 all over again and I'm crying in a corner.' I also went into it with the mentality that they would not let me die on television."

Were you happy to see Jen and Kisha win the race, or were you rooting for another team? Do you think the contestants played fair? Share your amazing opinions in the comments.

MORE: The Amazing Race 18 contestants finish their business