Just last night, season two of The Challenge: USA (a spin-off of MTV‘s beloved series, The Challenge) premiered on CBS, and the legendary Johnny Bananas made his primetime television debut.
The inaugural season of The Challenge: USA brought together fan-favorite players from four CBS competition shows (Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, and Love Island: USA), however, the bar has been raised for season two. For The Challenge: USA‘s highly-anticipated second season, The Love Island: USA contestants have been removed from the equation and six The Challenge alumni have been added to the cast list (Cory Wharton, Johnny Bananas, Wes Bergmann, Amanda Garcia, Jonna Mannion, and Tori Deal), ultimately making the competition more difficult than ever before.
Out of these six The Challenge veterans, one of them is arguably the most feared (or perhaps the most respected) of all: John Devenanzio (often referred to as Johnny Bananas). In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Bananas dished about why he thinks he was invited to be on season two of The Challenge: USA, rather than season one.
“What makes The Challenge unique is the fact that they bring back cast members season after season. You get an influx of new people, but you have your mainstays and that’s what a large majority of our fanbase wants to see. You can’t just plug in a whole bunch of new people, slap The Challenge logo on it, put it on another network and expect the true fandom to follow along. I think it was an experiment gone horribly awry.”
If there is one thing to know about Johnny Bananas, he doesn’t sugarcoat anything…
Who is Johnny Bananas?
Johnny Bananas first stepped into the limelight on The Real World: Key West back in 2006, prior to joining The Challenge: The Duel later that same year. Although he did not win the competition until his fourth time participating in the action-packed series, Bananas quickly became the most decorated The Challenge player of all time, with seven season wins under his belt: The Challenge: The Island, The Challenge: The Ruins, The Challenge: Rivals, The Challenge: Battle of the Exes, The Challenge: Rivals II, The Challenge: Free Agents, and The Challenge: Rivals III.
Will he take home the win for season two of The Challenge: USA? We will just have to wait and see!
Who slid into Johnny Bananas’ DMs before season two of ‘The Challenge: USA?’
Turns out it was not a girl chasing after Johnny Bananas’ good looks and charm, it was The Amazing Race veteran Dusty Harris sliding into his Instagram DMs prior to competing on The Challenge: USA together.
“The only person this season that DMed me was Dusty, and I’ve never even met this guy before. He’s like, ‘Hey man, I’m going on the next Challenge. I’m on Amazing Race.’ I don’t know who this guy is from a hole in the wall, so I’m not going to tell him I’m going or I know anything about the show.”
Unfortunately, it looks like Dusty shot his shot and air-balled…
Will the unlikely duo manage to form a connection on the show? Tune in to CBS from 10 pm to 11 pm ET/PT every Thursday and 9 pm to 10 pm ET/PT every Sunday to see for yourself.