At one point during the sixth season of CBS’s “The Amazing Race,” Freddy Holliday screamed to the remaining teams, “One of you I will break in half!” Well, he didn’t break anybody in half, but Holliday and his fiancee Kendra Bentley did outrace the competition, winning the reality TV show’s $1 million prize.
“It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s unbelievable,” Bentley told The Associated Press following Tuesday’s episode.
Holliday, 34, and Bentley, 25, both from Miami, were surrounded by friends, family, host Phil Keoghan and “Amazing Race” peers for the show’s finale. One of the engaged model team’s driving forces in winning the race was their “model alliance” with dating actor team Hayden Kristianson, 25, and Aaron Crumbaugh, 25, who finished in fourth place.
“All four of us agreed that it was an information-sharing model alliance,” Bentley said. “And by the time we got to the roadblocks and detours, we were on our own and we agreed to that. We started it in Norway and it strengthened, and it stayed until Shanghai. Then that was it.”
“It helped alleviate the stress to have somebody there you could relate to,” Holliday told the AP.
One of the most stressful moments for Holliday occurred when a pivoting gate at the Heritage Rail Museum in Budapest, Hungary, knocked him in the face. Holliday accused the other teams of pulling the metal gate down on him. That’s when he issued his threat: “One of you I will break in half!”
“I got hit in the nose and it was so painful,” Holliday said. “The alternative to that kind of reaction was me bawling like a baby. I didn’t think America wanted to see a grown man act like that so I chose the lesser of two evils.”
Holliday now acknowledges no one pulled the gate down on him.
Long-distance dating couple — who are no longer long-distance — Kris Perkins, 30, and Jon Buehler, 29, placed second, while third place went to formerly dating couple Adam Malis, 27, and Rebecca Cardon, 29, from Los Angeles.
Holliday and Bentley plan to donate part of their prize money to charity and invest the rest. They don’t plan to use the winnings to fund a bigger, fancier wedding.
“Maybe a few more flowers for you,” Holliday said to Bentley.