AfterElton: Hi guys! I was so sorry to see you eliminated on Sunday night's episode.
Joe: Nobody is sorrier than us! [laughs]
AE: This was your second time on The Amazing Race. How did this experience differ from your first time?
Joe: The first one felt like a luxury vacation compared to this one. This one felt like boot camp! [laughs] We were in the front of the pack most of the season, and I think because it was a new experience, it was new to everyone. We found our feet quickly and took off running in the first one and understood the game. This time, the game has changed, it's really tough competition—
Bill: Harder race course.
Joe: Really tough race course! Everybody is well experienced. On a regular Amazing Race, there's always the first couple of people that are not getting it together, or they think there's going to be a lot of sightseeing, they've never been out of the country before, or something like that. Or they have relationship problems—
Bill: Yeah, so a lot of things go wrong for three or four teams and usually those are the ones out first. This time everybody is so hardcore and well-seasoned that you just didn't have anyone like that.
AE: Do you feel CBS was more open with your sexuality this time around? They actually showed more affection between the two of you, especially at the Pit Stops.
Joe: I definitely feel that CBS has grown a lot and accepted the whole thing a lot better. When we were on TAR1, one time at a PitStop, we hugged and kissed and we actually got reprimanded for it because they could never put it on TV. It was probably immediately afterwards, with TAR2 and Danny and Ozzy, that it became more acceptable. I think it's totally accepted now. I don't think there's any problems or any questions whatsoever. I'm really proud of CBS in that regard.
Bill: We were the first gay couple in a long-term relationship depicted on national television. I think CBS wanted to go there but wasn't sure what the sponsors and what the public would say about it, and after we made it through that whole season and the show was becoming a success, it became less of an issue. Fortunately for CBS, they've been very upfront with their shows in casting lots of ethnic diversity and sexual orientations. They've been a groundbreaker, I think.
Joe: Reality television in general has done that for everyone, but I think CBS is at the forefront of it all. Considering they started it in 2001 and going from that season and what they wouldn't let us do to now, this season, and I was kind of shocked that they showed that much affection between us.
Bill: [laughs] I was kissing Joe all the time! [Both laugh] It really was refreshing to see that all happen.
AE: Some fans have criticized the show saying that the legs were badly planned this year, especially with some of the roadblocks. Did you think the game was badly planned? Is that why several teams fell so far behind?
Bill: No, I think that's unfair. I really think that it's really what the race is about. It's a real world race. If you run into problems along the way, you just have to solve it or you're out of the race. I have to hand it to the producers – they really did a good job changing things where they had to make it all work. They helped us through the things when they needed to. We were like, “Now what do we do here?” And they said, "We don't know. You have to make your own decision." So that was kind of cool that they didn't step in and change anything, they just said, "Figure it out!" They weren't telling us what they were doing. They had to do what they had to do to keep filming us, but they weren't telling us what their plans were. To our credit, we kept a stuff upper lip and managed to stay in the game. After Kilimanjaro, that KLM flight not letting us on, that was really depressing. It was the second time in a row when the flights weren't working out, we were having trouble, we'd just spent 28 hours in Johannesburg the leg before …
Joe: Things just happen along the way. CBS can't anticipate everything that's going to happen, especially with airline travel. Everybody needs to understand that this was filmed in November-December, which is the beginning of the summer season in Southern Africa. A lot of families were going on summer vacation, schools had just let out, the hajj was happening so a lot of people were going from Muslim countries in Africa to Saudi Arabia. Most of the airplanes were about 40% oversold, so it was incredibly difficult to get tickets. This thing with KLM in Kilimanjaro, we actually had like 38 seats purchased for that airplane. It was the captain's decision not to let us on. What they said was we had an illegal connection to begin with because it was too short. It was less than an hour and a half. It was an hour and five minutes or whatever. Then our incoming flight was about 15 minutes late, which shrunk it down to like 45 to 50 minutes. Basically, the KLM people were just having nothing to do with it. They were like, "You can't do it. You didn't have a legal connection to begin with. Get out of here."
Bill: That flight was literally there on the ground in front of us for 45 minutes. Both doors and both stairways were in place when we first got there.
Joe: That's why I was going so crazy there, because I actually had the opportunity if I wanted to just go run up the staircase and talk to the captain myself. We didn't even think the guy that was supposed to be doing this, the KLM employee was actually talking to the man. I think he was just going into the airplane and coming back out later and saying, "The Captain said no." We didn't have any indication that he'd actually had a conversation with him. I couldn't believe that anyone would actually deny us boarding when it was just sitting there. That was a bad spirit breaker for both Eric and Danielle and ourselves.
