Tyler Crispen Reveals an Unseen Alliance with Josh on 'The Challenge: USA' Season 2
The Challenge: USA season 2 is here! Every week, Parade.com will speak with the CBS reality alumni who were eliminated from the all-star competition.
Tyler Crispen had an entirely different look on The Challenge: USA season 2. No, he still had his shoulder-length mop of hair, and laid-back surfer demeanor that had even T.J. Lavin calling him one of the most "chill guys to ever play." But, after cementing a legacy on Big Brother as a dominant force and one of the best to never play, Tyler experienced quite the opposite on his second U.S. show. As he himself put last night, "It took me a while to get my footing in this game. And then the ground was ice and it was uphill." Tyler got votes nearly every time he was eligible, seen as an easy target both as a rookie with no connections, as well as from the winnowing Big Brother pool. However, he was able to make a connection in one of the sole remaining BB alumni.
Despite coming out of a previous engagement with his former showmance (and Challenge: USA season 1 finalist) Angela Rummans, Tyler found himself coupled up once more, as he developed into a duo with Alyssa Snider. Simultaneously, he got protected at crucial times with vet and fellow Big Brother 20 alum Faysal Shafaat. Tyler knew, though, that Faysal's loyalty was ultimately to the vets over him. And that bore out in the most recent elimination. As the most unconnected guy left in the house, Tyler was an easy nomination to send into the sand. And, despite being told the plan was to make it a girls' day, he was stunned to see the vets put Chris Underwood in. And so, the two rookies who could never see eye-to-eye faced off once more. And, reminiscent of Tyler's time in the game, he found himself being chased. This time, however, he couldn't evade his captor.
Now out of the game, Parade.com speaks with Tyler about his relationship with Alyssa during and after the show, his "anti-alliance" with Chris, and trying to navigate his dynamic with the Big Brother veterans.
Related: Everything to Know About The Challenge: USA Season 2
A few years ago, you were on Big Brother 22, and it's safe to say your heart wasn't in it. So what made you decide it was the right time to compete on The Challenge, especially after undergoing such a big breakup with Angela?
In the past, doing another show just didn't feel right to me. Like you said, life kind of happened to me. And it was a time where I was in a transitional phase in my personal life. So when The Challenge came around, I was like, "Maybe I shouldn't ignore all these obvious signs that I need to be doing something epic right now, and go do something epic right now and challenge myself." So it really just lined up more perfectly, and I couldn't be more thankful for that.
Let's cut from before the season to the end of it. The vote this last episode was a big battle between the Survivor alliance and the vets. You were told by the vets that it would be a girls' day. So were you blindsided to see their votes all go onto Chris?
In a way, I was. I thought it was going to be 50/50 if I'm being honest, just because the way people were moving. I know they said that they were going to try to pull the wool over my eyes on it. But we'd been in the house that long. At that point, I know how to read these guys. So I kind of saw the writing on the wall. So I went into that elimination, just expecting to go in anyway. So I was kind of in that mindset. Not that they pulled off a full-on blindside on me, but they might have gotten me a little bit. At the same time, since the beginning of the season, I just had to show up ready to go into the elimination. You saw me having 9 million Hopper balls every single time. So I've pretty much just tried to show up ready every single elimination.
Talk to me about that feeling. Because it's certainly new for you to be an underdog on a reality TV show. What was it like to get adjusted to that position?
I mean, it was definitely like a new place for me. Big Brother 20, I feel like everything just kept going my way. And I was never really at that point more than a couple of days. So coming into The Challenge and just being obliterated, my whole team down bad from the beginning, just losing members left and right. And then all of a sudden, now I'm the last one standing. It was different. But at the same time, I kind of enjoyed being the lone wolf and just kind of keeping my back against the wall. It kind of gave me this little chip on my shoulder to keep pressing me forward. But I was kind of in the mindset towards the middle of the game. I was like, "Alright, the only way I'm getting to the end of this thing is if I just win my way there." So once I clicked into that mindset, that was pretty much all I had.
I want to get into a few key relationships you had on the show. Let's start with the guy who eliminated you in Chris. You got into it with him after he came back from his first elimination. Early in this last episode, it was said the two of you would never work together. But you were the last two non-veteran men left. At any point did you try to cooperate, given that you were easily being picked off?
I wish I could admit that would have been a good strategy, or that we could have actually gone through it. And we tried it multiple times. But it seemed like every time me and Chris tried to work together, we would just do the opposite of what the other person said. We literally had an "anti-alliance" where if I told Chris he should do something, he would do the opposite. The only way we could work together is if we did it on accident. That was it. So I needed to work with him in the game because I probably would have at least had somebody on my side at that point, but it just couldn't happen. I love Chris, though. We're friends in real life, and we laugh about it now. But in the game, we just did not mesh.
Let's talk about one of the people who put you into elimination in Michaela. During nominations, Cory said that you wanted to work with her. She replied you had four or five opportunities to do so and had not. How accurate is that?
I mean, I can't really think of too many instances. She might be kind of going back to when we had our little green team meetings that one time when we put in two Survivor players that she didn't want to put in. I feel like that was kind of a turning point with Michaela and myself where it was like, "Okay, maybe we're starting to move in opposite directions here. We might not be able to work something out." And I can understand it. She knew I was just a wildcard. Michaela is so smart. She would say so many things and she'd be five steps ahead. And I couldn't even keep up with what she was even talking about. So, at a certain point, I just kind of gave up, like, "Okay, I don't know if this is gonna work out. But, if you're gonna go ahead, do your thing, Michaela."
You came into this show with someone from your Big Brother season in Faysal. But you verbalized that you knew he would always put the vets above you. And that proved to be the case in this very episode. Talk to me about navigating your relationship with that knowledge. As you mentioned, it's "any port in a storm." But this port is looking pretty bedraggled.
[Laughs.] That's right. I mean, [with] Fess, we've always been cool. Even though we were on opposite sides in Big Brother, we've always maintained a solid friendship. But he's always gonna have these challengers' backs before yours. We didn't really know how to work together. So we would be like a "less is more" type of thing. I would tell Fess when I really needed stuff; he would tell me when he really needed something. But if I'm being honest, I felt like I was stepping into his world. So I'm sitting there, paying attention to how he's playing this game, and trying to move how he moves. Because Faysal's made it to like ever final he's tried to. So I'm like, "How does Fess do this? Dang, he really didn't really say much." So then I just started not really saying much. But then I'm like, "Wait a minute, he's already got these connections. Maybe I should make some connections." But then, by that point, I was on ice and going uphill. So yeah, I tried with Faysal. But it's only it can only go too far.
We didn't see a lot of you interacting with Josh in the house. But he's another Big Brother alum who was also a veteran, and I know you had a previously close connection through Kaycee. Did you have a relationship in the house as well?
Actually, yea., I mean, I didn't really show too much of it. But I felt like Josh and I had a solid relationship. And I probably talked more game with Josh than I did with Faysal. Like last week, when Josh voted for Wes, it was up in the air between him putting the ball on me and putting the ball on Wes. And last minute, I came to him like, "Dude, you're my number one in this house. You can't be putting a vote on me." And I think that might tie into why he flipped on Wes a little bit. Maybe. But yeah, Josh and I were a lot closer than the edit shows. But, at the same time, it's the same thing. He's gonna have all these other guys' backs. We've never played a game together. So I was kinda just grasping at straws at that point in the game anyway.
Now that we got all of the platonic relationships out of the way, let's get to the heart of the matter in Alyssa. You came out of an engagement with Angela and vowed that you wouldn't get in a showmance again upon coming into The Challenge. Of course, those were famous last words. Talk to me about forming that initial bond with Alyssa, and how it ultimately became physical.
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's almost like when you try for something not to happen, it happens even more or even quicker. That was definitely something I was trying to avoid, getting into another showmance. I wanted to come into The Challenge, play my own game, and do something for myself. And then just the sweetest human on Earth comes along and starts giving me the eyes. We had a good working relationship. We knew how to talk to each other. She's just a sweetheart. And I was just really happy to have her in the game. So sometimes you just gotta take it in as it comes.
Now, I talked with Alyssa last week, and she updated us that you had gone your separate ways, that after the season, you realized you needed to heal and work on yourself.
Yeah, I mean, she pretty much hit the nail on the head. I feel like, in the game, you can get so close with somebody so quick. And then once you get back to real life, you've got to take a deep breath and not really dive into something too crazy yet. I'm really not at a point where I feel like I want to be in a relationship. I wasn't wanting one for the longest time. And I feel like I want to just explore life as Tyler. But I still value Alyssa in our relationship. And I feel like we're gonna be really close for a long time. But I'm not sure if the timing is right for us.
In honor of the infamous "[expletive] They Should Have Shown" episode of the old-school days of The Challenge, what's one moment from your time on the show that you wish you had made the edit?
There were so many good little juicy fights that didn't make the edit. They made little clips. There was a Faysal versus Bananas argument. There's a couple of Josh/Fessy arguments that didn't make it. There was a great Amanda/Michele argument that didn't make it. We might need some bonus clips going out on YouTube or something. Because there was there were some juicy ones.
Well now I see how the vets may not be seen as so formidable, if they're fighting with each other all the time!
!hat's what I'm saying! You could see the cracks in there. I feel like everybody that was going against the vets, you can see these cracks. But then these fights would make them stronger. And I'm like, "Okay, I guess not." It was great. That house was a madhouse.
Finally, when I talked with T.J. preseason, he said you were on of the CBS alumni he wanted to see make the jump to the flagship series. Now that you've officially cut your teeth on The Challenge, is that something you'd be interest in doing?
Well, first off, I mean, that's the greatest thing in the world to get props from T.J., I feel like that was about 40% of my motivation, just try to make T.J. give me a compliment the whole time. So hearing him say that was like, "Wow, maybe I don't even see something in myself that he sees." But I feel like I would give it another try. It was the experience of a lifetime. And it took me a while to get my footing and to understand the game because I hadn't really watched it too much. But now that I've been through it, now that I kind of understand it, now that I maybe have some other solid relationships from the show. I feel like I could give it another go if they asked me back.