Photo: Courtesy of CBS
Plus, Rachel spills about her 'Survivor' dreams. "I have to pull the CBS reality-athlete trifecta."
By Amanda Hamilton Sy — Written on Mar 09, 2014
Could Brendon, Rachel & Baby be the next hit reality show? Hold on to your extensions, Kardashians!
"We got married on TV, and who wouldn't want to see a little Rachel baby on TV, right?" asks former Big Brother winner Rachel Reilly.
Unfortunately — or fortunately for Kim & Co. — it's not happening ... yet.
These days Rachel and her husband, fellow reality TV veteran Brendon Villegas — collectively known to fans as Brenchel — are competing once again on The Amazing Race after coming in third during Season 20. "Brendon promised me that if we win a million dollars, we'll have a baby and start a family so [we're] crossing our fingers for that."
Diapers are expensive, after all. Right, Brendon? "Being a husband and eventually being a father, my number one thing is protecting my family," the Big Brother alum said about his future family staying in the TV spotlight. "As long as all that's possible — I can still feel my family is safe at all times and I don't have to worry about people wanting to pop out of the bushes and take a picture of the baby — I'm OK with that."
YourTango: Having been on the show a few seasons ago, what was your strategy going into The Amazing Race this time?
Brendon: Rachel and I did our homework, that's one thing. We watched a lot of seasons. The first time we only had about two months between Big Brother and Amazing Race, so other than watching a couple seasons here and there, we didn't really have time to prepare. We were thrown into it. This time we thought, ya know, let's start preparing, let's start getting in shape, let's watch other episodes … different aspects of each different team, what we thought maybe worked for them or really gave them an advantage in the competition.
Rachel: I call us reality athletes because we literally train so hard for the race and these competition shows; I lost 12 pounds training for the race, between running, everything — every day we were running miles, running with weights in our backpacks — doing yoga and weight lifting. It's crazy the amount of preparation we put into it, training for the race and training for competition shows.
YourTango: Who did you feel would be your biggest competition?
Brendon: We got to see a little bit of last season, and we knew the Afghanimals [Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran] were going to be there. We were thinking that they were definitely going to be a challenge because we looked at them as tough racers ... we thought about The Cowboys [Cord McCoy and Jet McCoy], who have been on two times before and both times have finished pretty strong. The teams that have raced two times before, that are racing for the third time, we were most nervous against them because they've been through it twice already and they know the ins and outs and the little things that might make a difference. Luke [Adams] and Margie [O'Donnell], same thing with them ... it's hard when you see these people, you grow to really like them on the show, but at some point you think, "If it's me or them, it's us."
Rachel: The Globetrotters [Herbert "Flight Time" Lang and Nate "Big Easy" Lofton] because I feel I got a little star struck around them, like Amazing Race star struck because I was such a huge fan of The Globetrotters; anytime that you see a team that you're a huge fan of anyway, you automatically want to be kind of nicer to them and you want to align with them and talk to them more. I was really nervous about racing against them because I just thought, "Damn, how am I going to race against The Globetrotters? I look up to them so much."
More from YourTango!
YourTango: Would you ever participate in Big Brother again?
Brendon: When you really think about it, it really is so much of your life. It's long. It's grueling. It's exhausting. You come out and you have post-traumatic-reality disorder for six months after. It takes a lot out of you. It is very challenging, and I think Big Brother is probably the toughest reality competition show because the other stuff is all hard, but they're much shorter; even Survivor is only 39 days.
Rachel: We always say, "Never say never." Big Brother is such a big part of our lives, between winning and meeting Brendon on the show and my sister [Elissa Slater] was on the show. Big Brother and the CBS family are really a big part of our lives, so you can never say never.
YourTango: What kind of advice do you have for anybody going into the house this summer?
Brendon: I would always stress to people that they need to make sure they're thinking about all the other aspects of Big Brother, like the fact that you're not having your Internet anymore, you're not on your cellphone, you're not communicating with family. I think sometimes people forget about that stuff, and that sometimes is the most challenging stuff because it becomes so mentally stressful. What do you do when you're stressed out or you have to put up with somebody you can't stand? You go and talk to your best friend or your wife or your husband or your parents or whoever's close to you, but you don't have that in Big Brother. They should really, really think long and hard about that; if they've got a problem, they've gotta keep it to themselves. It's a lot of inner turmoil.
Rachel: Just to train ... being in good shape really does help and does make a difference, so I always tell people to train. Like I said, I feel like we're reality TV athletes. Going into these reality competition shows, people think you can just show up and you'll be fine, but that's so not true. They're so physically demanding and emotionally and mentally demanding. Watch Big Brother. Watch seasons and seasons of Big Brother, and watch what people did, how people played the game. Pick a couple of people you admire and think about how you can play the game — maybe not exactly like them — but take some of their good points that you admire in their game play and try to incorporate them into your strategy.
YourTango: If you could participate in another reality show, which would you choose?
Rachel: I want to do Survivor. For my competition reality career to be complete, I have to pull the CBS reality-athlete trifecta. I think it'd be really fun. Plus, you get to go on a really cool diet. I love Survivor. It's like you're watching a movie. It's so exotic and everyone's beautiful. It just looks like a lot of fun. I'm sure it's really hard, and I've heard from Survivor contestants that I don't want to do it, but I always tell them I really do.