Sarah Rice Breaks Down Big ‘The Challenge’ Return & Reveals Why She’s at ‘Peace’ Over Exit

More than a decade after Rivals III, Sarah Rice made her long-awaited return to The Challenge to serve as a mercenary in the elimination arena for Season 42.

Rice, who’d been an alum of The Real World: Brooklyn before joining The Challenge world, was a two-time champion of the show and had been to three other finals. So she was quite a force in her day, and many fans of the series wanted to see her back (this one included), especially since her final moment on the series was one where triumph turned to tragedy as then-partner Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio decided to keep the cash winnings they’d both earned.

To find out what went into Rice’s comeback — and the fact that she didn’t even know how many people wanted her there — TV Insider caught up with the Challenge legend!

I’m glad that you’re back in The Challenge world, Sarah. For those of us who’ve watched it forever, we’ve been hoping to see this moment for a while. Had you heard that? Had you noticed, fans would say, “We need Sarah back”?

Sarah Rice: No, I did not know that. I did not know that there were going to be so many people that were going to respond positively, or even that I was that popular. Yeah, it’s been very nice for my — I don’t know — I want to say ego.

Talk about the call when you did get invited back, when you found out you were going to be a mercenary.

Well, the timing was just perfect, and it happened that I didn’t have to reschedule that many clients because I have my own private practice, and I’m a psychotherapist aside from my life on The Challenge and podcast-hosting and all that. So it is not often that I have the time and the flexibility in my schedule, but this all worked out. I was also about to start a postmaster’s program for equine-assisted psychotherapy, and those are not cheap. So when they said, “Hey, do you want a stack of cash to fly to Thailand for five days and have a nice vacation?” I said, “Yes, please,” so that I don’t have to pay out of pocket for this program. And yeah, so I said yes, and I instantly became aware of how out of shape I was-slash-am — and not out of shape for a regular human, but out of shape for a Challenge competitor.

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'The Challenge' Finally Brings Back Sarah Rice

A couple years ago, I had a radical hysterectomy. I had major surgery. I am in medical menopause. I’m on hormone replacement therapy. I am not somebody that I would put at the top of any list of, “Oh, she’s gonna go in and crush it.” So I was a little bit nervous, but my girlfriend said — she was so cute — when I’m going back and forth like, “What am I doing? Should I even do this? Are people even gonna like me coming back? Are they gonna be probably really judgmental about how I do?” And she goes all enthusiastically — she’s from Chicago, she’s a big Bulls fan — “When Michael Jordan came back, did we care that he was out of shape? And did we care that he was terrible? No. We were just so excited to see Michael Jordan back on our TV screens, and this is what it’s going to be like with you.” Now, I do not think I’m any kind of Michael Jordan, but that did help a little bit. Maybe people will just be excited to see me. And after how everything panned out, and the response I got, I was like, “Damn, this is exactly what she said. And I’m kind of like Michael Jordan coming back. The people are just excited, and they don’t really care.”

It was not a surprise to anyone, including me, that I lost that. I knew — that’s the most physical I’ve ever been in my entire life. I do not do stuff like that. Give me a puzzle. Give me a swim or something in the pool. Give me a long trail run. I love that. I can climb any mountain, but I do not like to get hit. I don’t like to hurt other people. No, no, no, no.

The experience also gave you an opportunity to reunite with Johnny Bananas. What was your reaction to that?

It’s funny. I feel like so much of my life has changed from who I was and where I was when I first started the show, and I have put so much energy into my roles outside of the show and academics, and just doing different things, and it is interesting to see someone whose entire life has been The Challenge. And I get it. That is what he wants to do, and that’s what makes him happy, and that is where he finds value. But it feels a little shallow and empty to me, and I wanted something more substantive. And so, seeing him again and seeing him care about the same things that he cared about 10 years ago makes me, honestly, kind of a little sad.

It makes me sad that … so much of who he is, it feels like out of his hands in a way, that he’s just part of this world where you care so much about what other people think and how you’re perceived and this persona — and even just like keeping with a nickname for so long. It feels kind of like this stunted maturation, and if he’s happy doing that, I say more power to you. You know what? Not a lot of people want to do that. Somebody’s got to be — I don’t know, does somebody have to be that person? — but he is that person. There’s nobody else who is like him, and it certainly is fun to watch. He makes for good television. I’ll give him that. But we just have very different values, and I think that was really evident when he was thinking that I was going to chew him out… I saw a clip, I think, on his own podcast where he said, “I thought she was going to come out there and she was going to say, ‘TJ, like, I don’t even care about the money. I just came here to yell at Johnny.'” Could you imagine I just came out there to yell at a 45-year-old man? This is not that serious, and I do not care.

I’ve done so much more in my life than just won a couple Challenges and had some money stolen from me. Which also, he says he stole $275,000. Technically, he only stole my half of it, which was like 100 and I don’t know. Do the math on that. Yeah, $135,000. I can’t remember, but it’s fine. It is what it is.

Did you keep up with The Challenge after your last season?

Not initially because I got accepted into grad school on that last season. I literally got the call, and the producers pulled me aside and said, “Hey, just to let you know” — because I told them, I said, “I’m waiting for this email. Can you please check? I want to know if I got accepted into this program” — and they told me I did. And I remember coming out, coming back to the house, and telling the other Challenge-rs, like, “Guys, guess what? I just got into grad school!” And nobody cared at all. They were like, “OK, whatever.”…

So I went right into the world of academics, and that was my life for a few years, and then, as kind of a spinoff from our podcast, I host a podcast with another Challenge alum, Susie Meister…

Another one people want back on!

Yeah, and we started a Patreon where — because we didn’t just want the podcast to be talking about The Challenge, but we knew that people still wanted to discuss it and wanted to hear about it and wanted the insider info. So we started a Patreon where we meet weekly and do, we call it, “Hot Goss Sesh,” and we talk about what’s happened in The Challenge world. We talk about when there’s a show that’s on. We watch the show, and we kind of do a breakdown of the episode. And so I’ve kept up because of that. But there are definitely a lot of seasons that I missed before we started doing that. But it’s very fun to watch it as a viewer, rather than as a participant.

When I was on Challenges and then got sent home, I would never watch it. I kind of made a point of saying, “I’m not going to watch any the rest of any season that I was on and got kicked off of” because it almost pained me to see what I had to miss, and so there were a lot that I missed. But the last few seasons, I’ve definitely tuned in, and we’ve talked about them on the show. We have Challenge-rs come on, and we have like literally hundreds of interviews on our Patreon with past Challenge-rs, so it’s really fun to get. And now, I kind of feel like the wise old sage. You can talk to these younger kids about their experience on there, and that’s very fun. And I do know that, and am well aware, that a lot of people in that arena had no freaking clue who I was and were barely even alive, like still in diapers when I started my reality TV show career. So, yeah, I mean it’s very fun to watch them, and I think some of these new kids are really great. I really like Anna Leigh [Wilson] on there. I think she makes for great TV, and I like [Alexis] Lete. I think there’s a lot of really good new cast members that are making it really fun to watch.

Do you have any interest in returning to this world again, or is this kind of a one-and-done for you?

If they called me and said, “We need a mercenary to do a puzzle,” I might say yes. Or maybe even All Stars if the timing is right. I think the biggest thing is that I have my own private practice, counseling, and I have a full client load, and so it’s very difficult. Nobody wants their therapist to disappear for two months. And then when you can’t tell people why, and yeah, it just feels like maybe this was a great opportunity to come back and show people I’m still here, and also let people know — which I didn’t know I needed to let them know — that I do not care about how things ended, and we are healed over here, guys. There is no resentment I’m holding on to, and yeah, I think that’s kind of what you want in a therapist, too, somebody who’s not holding on to the past. It could show you that you’re not what has happened to you. You’re what you make of what has happened to you and the attitude you have about it, so I think maybe this will be just a one-and-done, but we’ll see. Never say never, I guess.

The Challenge, Wednesdays, Paramount+