“There were a lot of breakdowns at this point,” Aviv Melmed Bruno tells Entertainment Weekly.
She almost made it another final, but unfortunately got lost in some dark tunnels on her way there.
My bigger issue was just all the feedback was like, “She’s so boring.”
Aviv Melmed Bruno, ‘The Challenge’.mtv
But I’m anything but boring.
I think we’re past that you got your drama with the footsie.
They’re always like, “She’s the voice of reason and she’s so mature.”
Johnny ‘Bananas’ Devenanzio, ‘The Challenge’.mtv
Look, you need a normal-ish person to make it make everyone look that much crazier.
So you’re welcome, everyone.
What actually went down on that bus?
Aviv Melmed Bruno, Michele Fitzgerald, Jenny West, ‘The Challenge’.mtv
A lot went down before the bus, and then the argument was continuing on the bus.
He did it right in front of Michele, and Michele had made some comment about touching each other.
At that point, the cameras weren’t even there.
Johnny and I, we act like children sometimes and were mimicking the footsie thing.
They used that footage because they didn’t have the footage from the beginning when he was tapping me.
You see Rachel not get involved, I don’t get involved.
We were all just like, “Oh my God, can we move on?”
You get to the end of these shows and everyone is just mentally broken.
There were a lot of breakdowns at this point.
What do you think about how it’s escalated on social media?
I am shocked that people are invested emotionally after the show, but I get it.
It’s fun, I guess, for people.
But Rachel is such a feminist.
And you know that the show’s edited.
It tells a good story.
It tells the story that she’s on Johnny’s side.
And it also tells a story that the whole thing’s kind of ridiculous.
I just don’t like people impeding on other people’s personal lives or values or things like that.
My husband’s getting eggplants and bananas on his Instagram.
My advice is just take a stab at have fun with it, laugh about it.
Because as long as your real life is secure, then the rest is just bulls—.
What actually happened in this challenge when you DQed?
It was not good.
Then I had a mini panic attack because I realized I could be anywhere.
Eventually I saw light.
I had felt something that felt like a stick on the ground, but I didn’t see anything.
Then I got DQed for it.
Was that creative editing or did that actually happen?
Here’s the thing that I will tell everyone, we couldn’t see anything in the tunnel.
If something was knocked down, you just don’t know, you knocked it down without seeing it.
When I say it was dark, it was pitch black.
You were using your hands to feel around.
I’ll just take this stick and I’ll take this stick and f— your path.
I’m taking my own route."
Did you still give a shot to solve the puzzle at the end then?
They didn’t let me.
People were so confused.
I was like, “What way do I go?
I’m putting this down.”
It was just insane.
I was sweating my ass off.
So they brought me water.
At least you didn’t give up and kept going.
I was about to jump back in the hole.
But TJ’s like, “it’s possible for you to’t do it.”
That elimination against Jenny looked brutal.
Did you walk away with any injuries?
No, but I’m sure Jenny was beat up from me on her back.
Jenny’s like, “What is this thing?
Get off of me.”
I knew that was going to be a tough one for me.
I’d gone kind of back and forth on what else can I do?
Can I climb the cage?
Maybe I climb the cage and jump.
If anyone has any other ideas on what I could have done, I’m very open to feedback.
Yeah, I actually knocked her down.
Nice try, Jordan.
She was on the ground.
She was eating sand for a moment.
Also I was facing forward, not backward.
Tell me more about your foot injury we saw you struggling with for most of the season.
What was the official diagnosis?
It started out as plantar fasciitis, which is the tightening of the fascia.
I couldn’t put any pressure on my heel or my foot.
At that moment I was like, “Something’s really wrong.
I ended up in a boot for three weeks.
I’m actually still doing physical therapy.
I started running again, so I’m trying to build my distances.
But it’s definitely still there.
I have to be careful and I need to rehab it more.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
The Challenge: Battle of the Erasairs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
