COME FLY WITH ME, COME FLY AWAY

Will Jardell & James Wallington

weren’t expected to win The Amazing Race. Although the gay couple had made it to the final three in season 32, they were behind the front-runners, the volleyball-playing bearded brothers Riley and Maddison McKibbin, until the brothers’ cabbie got lost.

Suddenly the boyfriends took the lead, putting them right where Wallington had dreamed of being since he was a kid. He had already tried out for The Amazing Race numerous times before he met Jardell.

Jardell brought reality TV experience to the relationship, having finished as runner-up in cycle 21 of with Tyra Banks, behind the competition’s first male winner, Keith Carlos. Jardell says benefited him in “the learning curve of realizing that a camera’s in your face 24/7.” Otherwise, he jokes, “to be honest, all the time on , all we did was hang out in a house and have people take our photos. It’s definitely not as challenging as , when you’re literally doing the hardest things you could ever imagine.”