Half of the original contestants have now gone home on The Challenge: All Stars Rivals. On Wednesday (March 19) night’s new episode, it was Ashley Kelsey and Dario Medrano who found themselves packing their bags after being defeated in a puzzle elimination by Nany Gonzales and Turabi “Turbo” Çamkıran. They came pretty close to winning the daily challenge, which saw them coasting off of a cliff on a four-wheeler, but it was Adam Larson and Steve Meinke who got it done the fastest, and Ashley and Dario found themselves targeted in the house vote.
Ashley and Dario had an interesting story to share this season; while some of the other “rivals” pairings had been through more minor tiffs, they were in a long-term relationship with one another that ended in heartbreak. They each came into the season with other long-standing personal relationships — Ashley with fellow Real World: San Diego alums Frank Sweeney and Sam McGinn and Dario with real-life bestie Leroy Garrett — but that didn’t help them avoid the arena. In fact, Dario’s decision to turn his back on Leroy and partner Devin Walker led to an explosive blowup between Dario and Devin that might’ve put them at odds with others in the house.
So how was it for the two to try and forge a new relationship together as teammates this season — all while navigating a house full of OG Challenge veterans? And what didn’t we get to see about their time on this season? TV Insider chatted with both to find out.
On their current relationship status…
Dario confirmed, without mincing words, that these two are just friends at this point. “Ashley and I are friends. That’s kind of what that is. And she’s raising her daughter, doing a great job. I’m in South Florida, and yeah, there’s nothing between us,” he explained.
Ashley confirmed as much as well, adding, “The thing is, I am in such a different place now. I have a child and I take that very seriously. I don’t just let anybody into my life. I haven’t even dated since me and her dad broke up, and I’m like, ‘You live in Florida, logistically this isn’t gonna make any sense anyways,’ and that was something that was buried in the grave… I think we’re in a good place now that we’re just friends, and we can communicate now, and I think that’s way better.”
On their reactions to being paired together…
“I was sick. I was physically ill,” Ashley said of her initial response to finding out she’d be with Dario this season. “It was because I hadn’t seen the man so long. Six years of no communication. I’m talking like, ‘Bye,’ walked out the door. I haven’t seen him, talked, nothing. So I was like, ‘My heart,’ you know what I mean? And especially because he was someone that I really loved, so I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t know how this is gonna go.’”
For Dario, the response was a little less dramatic, though. He said he experienced “confusion” over the pairing but added, “I just hadn’t seen her in so long. I didn’t know what to expect… I wasn’t necessarily worried because I knew that she was a super nice person and there wouldn’t be any confrontation.”
On how they learned to be partners in a different way…
Even though they didn’t rekindle anything romantic on All Stars, Ashley and Dario did form a solid team mentality together and left in a better place.
As Ashley explained, “I always knew we would work well together because we actually were a really good partnership in life like when we were together. There’s obviously reasons why we didn’t work out, but I knew that was never going to be an issue. But what the issue I thought was going to be is that we weren’t going to communicate very well because we didn’t really hang out outside the game. So I liked that like throughout our journey, that kind of changed and shifted from us just playing in the challenges and kind of going our separate ways in the house to us like actually eating dinner together, and he cooked me like breakfast. So it was a nice little transition. You could see the evolution happening [throughout the season].”
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On the alliance we didn’t see…
Fans of Real World: San Diego and Battle of the Seasons might be wondering why Ashley didn’t get more of an assist from Frank and Sam, but according to her, there was more to the story than met the eye.
“We were working together the entire time. I think people just didn’t see it,” she said. “In the elimination where I went in the first time, I actually told Frank to say our name right there in front of everybody because I knew we were going in, and I was like, ‘Say our name. Don’t put your cards out there. That’d be so stupid.’ Everyone heard me say it… He was actually really upset because he was like, ‘I would not want anybody to ever think that I would do that to you because I absolutely wouldn’t,’” she explained. “We were working together a lot closer than it appears… But it was so nice to have them back because I also realized it was nice to have my number ones where I knew they were going to have our backs no matter what. In the game, you can say that you will, but like to truly feel in your heart that they’re not gonna go against you is like the best feeling in the game.”
On the drama that ensued with Leroy and Devin…
Dario went along with a plot to send Leroy and Devin in, which led to an explosive confrontation with Devin. So does he regret his move? You betcha!
Dario revealed that he and Leroy have cleared the air about his participation in that plot, but he still wishes it wouldn’t have happened. “We are still very close. He said to me that there was nothing that I could have done or would do that would ever change our relationship, but that really bothered me,” Dario said. “All I could do is really explain where I was coming from and my thought process as far as just playing the game. If I could go back, I would definitely change some things. Hindsight is 20/20. It is in no way a representation of how I feel about him, our relationship. It wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t. It wasn’t like I voted him in. I just wish I would have given him a heads up, and it was just a selfish thought, but all you can do is move past it, acknowledge it. We’ve spoken about it in depth. And i’s just one of those things. We’ll move on.”
As for Devin, well, Dario explained, “I got a little emotional. I think in the moment, especially when it’s someone you care about, you can let your emotions get the best of you, and that’s kind of what happened. Devin was just looking out for his team, and I understand that, and I just kind of lost my cool in that moment, but that’s reality TV. ”
Ashley, on the other hand, thinks Devin deserves a share of the blame for their shouting match: “I never saw that pool scene until I watched it on TV. I didn’t even know that it happened, but that’s where the communication was a little rocky with me and Dario because I didn’t know he had kind of outed himself in a way. He was never trying to gun for them. That’s the big misconception. He just knew that Frank was going to make it happen, and he was making it happen because everyone collectively in the full house wanted it to happen because we needed one of the two teams gone. Did we prefer them to stay? Of course,” she said. “It made it seem like he was really targeting on Leroy, which he wasn’t. And the whole fight started with him having a conversation with Leroy about what was going on — because it kind of came out a little bit, obviously because he’d outed himself I clearly now see that — but Corey [Lay] said something. So they were having a conversation, and then obviously Devin came over, and the whole thing started when he was just kind of trying to just talk to Leroy as a friend. And I think it didn’t need to escalate. If it just stayed between them, then I think Leroy would have been like, ‘I get it. I get what is trying to go down in the house right now.’”
On facing Nany and Turbo in the arena…
Ashley and Dario emerged victorious in their first elimination bout against Corey and Big T, but that still didn’t give them a confidence boost when they went in against Nany and Turbo.
“I was not confident in that elimination, and it kind of showed,” Ashley said. “I’m very good at puzzles, but I didn’t go first, and we thought we were gonna have like probably five or six rounds. We thought it was gonna go a lot longer, so we thought I would be able to kind of like get in there, but since I didn’t go first, Dario had the puzzle more, and he’s not confident in them… And we were going in with Turbo, who’s the puzzle king, who whips through these things so fast, which we had just witnessed with Fessy and Amber, and that’s kind of what he does in all the Survivor shows. He plays these puzzle games, so I was like, ‘Oh great.’ And they’re such a strong team. Nany has won a million eliminations. So obviously my confidence was pretty minimal in there, and I think it translated a little bit.”
“I knew that they were a great team. They’ve been around the block. Turbo is good at almost everything, so is Nany,” Dario added. “So I knew it was gonna be a tough matchup. But puzzles aren’t necessarily my strong suit, so it wasn’t a game that I felt confident about once I saw it. But those are two worthy opponents, and if you can beat those two, then it would have given us a lot of confidence to kind of continue forward.”
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On being part of All Stars and getting to play with some true OGs of the show…
Ashley has been a part of The Challenge since Battle of the Seasons in 2012, and Dario first joined in 2015 with Battle of the Bloodlines. So both have been around for more than a decade, but still, being on All Stars meant competing against some of the show’s most senior vets, and both reflected on that experience.
“It was a great experience. It’s a wide array of ages. I was on the younger side of the group, but overall, everyone’s coming from different walks of life,” Dario said. “A lot of people have kids and families, and some of these guys I grew up watching. So it’s a super cool experience. It was a great experience, and overall, it was a great great thing to be a part of.”
Ashley had a similar sentiment, saying, “It was actually really cool because I had never met Katie [Cooley]. So what’s what’s funny — and which is a negative too for me — is I hadn’t watched her gameplay. I had obviously seen Veronica [Portillo] in Champs vs. Pros, but I wasn’t there very long with her, and I still didn’t get to see her gameplay there. And I was like, ‘Oh you sneaky thing!’ I didn’t know that’s what she’s great at. I didn’t know she’s great at causing the chaos. Katie, I had no idea. I went back and watched some things afterwards, and I was like, ‘You’re a little crazy person!’ But she’s so sweet and like loving, and I loved her so much. It was really fun to get to play with some people that I never thought I would, but also I should have like done a little more research. I needed to know some of their past gameplay because it does help to know kind of who’s screwed someone over before.”
The Challenge, Wednesdays, 9/8c, MTV