In a move that no one saw coming, Johnny Bananas and Wes Bergmann revealed that they had finally decided to put their differences aside and work together during the premiere of The Challenge: Total Madness. The guys, who have been working against each other on the show for years, are secretly teaming up this season. “People thought it could never be done,” Johnny admitted to HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY. “It’s kind of an unholy alliance.” He also explained that the idea came about when both stars attended the MTV Movie & TV Awards in June 2019. At the time, they had both been newly eliminated from The Challenge: War of the Worlds 2.
“I started thinking about it at as soon as I got eliminated, and then he got eliminated right after me,” Johnny revealed. “I was looking at it like….two of the biggest names in the show, and two of the most dominant, strategic thinkers in the game, just got eliminated within the first four episodes. That’s an embarrassment and slap in the face and wake up call for us to change things up. We both just came to the realization, together, that we had to change our strategy. We were basically paving the way for everyone else [before], by eliminating each other and giving everyone else a piggyback to the final. That was dumb on both of our behalves. So we knew we had to change things up.”
Johnny explained that he and Wes were able to keep the rest of their castmates “truly in the dark” about their secret alliance, too. “Every season, we joke around about being in an alliance together, so everyone thought it was the same old story,” he said. “People just did NOT know what to do. When they realized [we might be working together], they started turning on each other because it wasn’t part of anyone’s game plan.”
Plus, having Wes on his side gave Johnny some leeway when it came to other people in the house who normally want to play against him. “People who I get along with hate Wes, and people who Wes gets along with hate me. So we were basically able to, not just protect each other from each other, but protect each other from everyone who we were working with, as well,” he revealed. “It’s a pretty incredible turn of events.”
We’ll have to see how this goes for Johnny and Wes as the season plays out, but Johnny did promise one thing: “You cannot predict the outcome of our alliance. You couldn’t script it! It’s pretty amazing.” The Challenge airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. on MTV.