‘The Amazing Race’: Will Jag Bains Do ‘Survivor’ After Winning Season 38 & ‘Big Brother’?

Jagateshwar “Jag” Bains officially became a two-time CBS champion when he and brother Jasmair “Jas” Bains won Season 38 of The Amazing Race during the December 10 finale. The reality star also won Season 25 of Big Brother in 2023.

Now, fans want Jag to go for the trifecta and compete on another popular CBS competition show: Survivor. And he is so down for it, too.

“I can’t let the fans down!” Jag laughed. “I would absolutely be down for Survivor. That’s the next one. Let me just say this, I didn’t expect to win Big Brother, and I won Big Brother. We didn’t expect to win Amazing Race, and we won Amazing Race. I’m not a mathematician, but … you can look at the data yourself! It would be an honor. It would be insane to go on Survivor, and obviously I’m going to do everything I can to pull out the W.”

Jas also noted that Jag appearing on another competition show would be “bigger than just” the show itself because it would be another opportunity for representation of their Punjabi Sikh culture. “We are the first in those spaces,” Jas pointed out. “It’s about representation. To be able to be on these platforms and have that representation, for people to be able to see us or see him and be like, whoa, I’ve never seen someone that looks like me, us, or whatever it is … there is a bigger reason behind this for why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

We caught up with Jag and Jas about their experience on The Amazing Race, how they dealt with racism during some of the legs, and what they’ll do with the money. Plus, where do they stand with Izzy Gleicher and Paige Seber after that U-Turn debacle? Scroll down for the conversation!

You guys gave a dominant performance the entire season. Why do you think you were able to excel so well in this format?

Jag Bains: We’re trying to figure that out.

Jas Bains: I think it’s because of just how close we are as brothers. We’re business partners. We used to have bunk beds together in college. We’ve always been super close, from day one. I think being able to put that into the race, where it is about you and your partner and how well you guys communicate, how’s your mindset …

Jag: We’re also just hyper-competitive and super focused. I think all of that helped. We just had a positive mindset. I think there’s a million little factors that all compiled into why a team does or doesn’t do well. I mean, we were just stoked to be on the show.

Did you expect to do so well? You never know what you’re going to get into on this show/

Jag: We were confident in ourselves, right? Like, let’s do our best, let’s see what happens, but it wasn’t in how well we did. Seven legs that we won, we win the whole show? We didn’t walk in thinking that.

Jas: We missed the first clue box. For us, we’re like …we remember Phil talking, and we’re like, “We might not be here for that long. We have to lock in.” So we just kept running our own race, kept relying on all the preparation that we had done to just keep pushing us forward.

What detour or roadblock did you struggle with the most, and which surprised you at how well you did?

Jag: I would say probably the Go Kart one for me. When I made my Go Kart, I just tightened it with my hands. I thought it was more of a building challenge than a race challenge, so when the nuts and bolts and screws fell over, I thought it was a needle-in-the-haystack challenge. So that was difficult for me.

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Jas: For me, it would be the braille roadblock. It was so mentally draining to be doing that. You have three pieces of paper that you had to reference, and reference your typewriter, too. It was by far the hardest one. But the one that I had most fun with was the Can-Can one.

Jag: We had so much fun with it. It’s a cool way to experience the culture of anywhere you’re at. The dancers get so into it. Your instructor wants you to succeed. It’s just a lot of energy.

Jas: The energy of the ladies is just so electric, too. We were having a great time with them while we were waiting in line with them, too. It was so much fun. That one was by far one of our favorite ones. And I have to throw in rappelling down the Empire State Building. Twenty people in history have done it, and now 26 people, and we’re one of the 26? It was crazy.

Jag, when you were approached for the race, how did you know your brother was who you wanted to bring with you?

Jag: I think that was a no-brainer for me. We watched the Race growing up with our family and stuff. I was, first, just so shocked and happy to even have the opportunity to go on. They literally asked me, “Is Jas down to do the race with you?” I think they wanted him more than they wanted me. I’m pretty sure they wanted to call him and be like, “Do you have to bring Jag?” But, no, for me it was a no-brainer. We’re so close. We immediately started preparing and had the best time on the show.

You had drama with Izzy on Big Brother, and then she wasn’t happy when you guys U-Turned her and Paige on The Amazing Race. Where do you stand now?

Jag: No one wants to get U-Turned, so whatever reaction anyone has is absolutely valid. That was fine. We U-Turned them; they’re not going to be happy about it. We’re chill with them now.

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Jas: We had actually smoothed things over during the race that they didn’t show. We’re great with them. And congrats to both of them! They just got married, too, last week. We’re very happy for them and the journey that they’ve had, too.

On one leg, you guys spoke about having trouble flagging down taxis because of the way you looked. You were able to push past it and continue the race, but how much did that affect you in the moment and afterwards?

Jas: We had actually waited 45 minutes. We were trying to hail down taxis for 45 minutes. Once we put our hoods up, I’m not kidding, it took us two minutes to get a taxi, which was insane. We felt like we were in this reality TV bubble … there’s cameras, you’re running around. But then that bubble got popped, and we got brought back down to like … wait, we’re running this in the real world. This is what we’re going to face, this discrimination and this racism. There were smaller ways that it would take form. People would cross the street when they would see us. We would enter spaces and they’d be like, “You guys have to leave. You can’t be in here.” We had another instance going to the skydiving place where the guy didn’t even know English, but the only thing he said to us was, “Boom, terrorist.” In that moment, we’re like, if we were not on this race and every second didn’t count, we would’ve just pulled over, gotten out of the taxi, hailed another one. But you’re in such an unfortunate situation that you’re like, we just have to keep pushing through.

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Jag: Even in Budapest, after we had such a difficult time finding taxis, we just wanted to pivot and start looking forward. The one thing was, we wanted to keep a positive mindset throughout the whole race. The whole taxi situation is obviously going to put us in a negative headspace, and we didn’t want that at all. We chose to just run on foot and take public transportation for the rest of the leg. You see all the other teams taking taxis and stuff, and we’re running on foot.

Jas: That’s the reality that we live in, unfortunately. They didn’t show Joseph [Abdin] and Adam [Abdin] face similar things, too. I bet so many other teams did that they didn’t show. This was something that was very concrete that they could show, so I’m so grateful that they did show this. We’ve built resiliency from facing things like this in our everyday lives, so we’re just going to push through this and pivot and adapt and keep going.

The win in itself is exciting, but you also got that money. What are your plans with that?

Jag: I’m gonna get guac on my Chipotle now. Live a little lavishly! [Laughs].

Jas: In all seriousness, it really is for our parents, as well. We want to retire them for our family. We wouldn’t be sitting in front of you doing this interview if it wasn’t for everything our parents have done.

Jag: They immigrated to the U.S. and sacrificed so much for us to have the opportunities that we have today, so we’re really family-oriented, and everything’s for them. We want to retire them.