‘The Challenge’s Justin Hinsley Talks Back-to-Back Heartbreaks & a Change of Perspective

After being the last male player eliminated in The Challenge Season 41 Vets & New Threats, Justin Hinsley faced an absolute nightmare scenario of history possibly repeating on Wednesday’s (October 14) newest episode of Season 42 a.k.a. Cutthroat. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a bad dream.

Team Orange struggled in the daily challenge, “Swing Into Action,” which saw the players face the biggest rig in Challenge history. They’d each have to swim to the first platform and, once all of them were on it, proceed through a series of other high-flying obstacles within a one-hour time limit. Though most of the teammates did well, including Justin, Chris “C.T.” Tamburello once again struggled to carry himself across the obstacles and opted to take a one-hour penalty rather than continue and hold the rest back.

The problem was, though, that the final leg of the daily was a puzzle, and with C.T. sidelined, Michele Fitzgerald stood alone as the puzzlemaster of the group and struggled to finish it in time to beat Team Gray (or Blu-Ray).

Orange then had to nominate two players for elimination, man or woman, for the winning team’s captain, Adrienne Naylor, to select from. Orange’s captain, Tori Deal, would choose one of the possible arena players, and the rest of the house would select the other. Though Justin literally begged Tori not to choose him for that, arguing that C.T. was the more obvious choice given his struggles with certain dailies, she went with him anyway, leaving Justin furious with his erstwhile friend. Still, the house put up C.T., much to his chagrin, and it was up to Adrienne to decide who she’d send in from both the Orange selectees and her own teammates. Ultimately, she chose to send in an equally livid Alexis Lete against Justin.

The two faced off in “Pressure Puzzles,” which included a series of three puzzle chambers apiece, with an advantage to be won by whoever finished their stations first — in this case, Justin had to grapple with a giant balloon that exploded powder all over his chamber while he was still working on his station. Ultimately, Lete pulled off the win, sending Justin home just before host T.J. Lavin announced the rest were heading to the finals.

So does Justin still hold a grudge against Tori for putting him in this position? Does he still think the team would’ve been better off with C.T. gone? And does he want to go for third time’s a charm? TV Insider caught up with Justin Hinsley to find out!

This is obviously the second time in a row that you’ve faced this exact situation of going home right before the final. Have you started a sage cleanse or consulted a few witches, or what’s going on?

Justin Hinsley: I’ve looked at Etsy for a couple of Etsy witches to see if, hopefully, maybe one day in the future, they’ll be able to get me to this final and not have the same outcome happen three times in a row. But yeah, I can say I’m probably one of few that has had this outcome back to back.

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Yeah, especially your first two outings. That’s just wild. Going back a little bit, you seemed to agree with those who said C.T. was just a big drag on Team Orange, and you seemed to feel that way for a while. Do you understand why they kept him on?

I do. I absolutely do. I know that in a final, he is very valuable. I know that his brain works in ways that ours will never be able to understand. I know that he has a stomach like no other. But I feel like all season we were just like counting on him, saying, “This is for the final,” when we weren’t near the final. We were just talking about all these challenges, and [he’s] just like, “Well, you’re gonna need me in the final,” but it’s like, “We just completed challenge two. What do you mean? We need to talk about right now and not then.”

So I think it was hard to watch him not go into any elimination, not get to feel the fire of things that he did for certain challenges, and then I pay the repercussions. But I also know that he is basically The Challenge, and without him, there is no season… People watch because of him, and I understand that. I know that, but that’s not going to make me close my mouth…

Kaikungwon Duanjumroon / Paramount+

You seemed to take it pretty hard as far as Tori’s decision to send you down. Do you still have a grudge for her? Or do you kind of understand her decision in retrospect?

I want to say it’s like 50-50. I feel like I’m a very vengeful person. Unfortunately, I had to have a little vendetta, but I also have talked to her after filming, and I do know that there are a lot of lessons that I learned coming out of this… I think, in the moment, I needed somebody to blame, and she was just that first person that was right there for me to blame. I could have easily — I should have easily — put a lot of blame on Adrienne as well when Adrienne was supposed to be my actual friend, who was supposed to actually have my back. So I should have been upset with her, but I just needed the first person that was right there that I could blame, and I used that as Tori.

Then, once I had a little bit of time to reflect and understand, I was the only person down in that sand. The only person that had was in control of winning that game was me, and ultimately, I couldn’t get the job done. So for a little while, you know, I wanted to blame somebody, but at the end of the day, the only person that there was to blame before that was myself because I just couldn’t get the job done.

So it sounds like you’re OK with Adrienne now, too?

I mean, I didn’t leave with any issues towards Adrienne. I think after watching the episode, I should have placed a little bit more anger towards Adrienne, especially her being my friend, but I was just in such an emotionally vulnerable state at that time with everything going on with my grandma, everything going on with the game, just so much happening all at once that I just I saw one person, and I saw Tori, and I just saw red. It was just misplaced heat that should have been placed in other directions as well.

I’m glad you brought up your grandmother. I know she was your why for this season. How is she doing?

She’s doing very well. We’re in remission. We’re doing great. She’s moving. She’s traveling. The surgery went amazing. The surgery she was actually having right as I was going into elimination. So my brain was just so frazzled. But we’re doing really good. We’re going to Paris together in December. We’re traveling. She’s doing amazing.

That’s awesome to hear. Talking about the elimination, obviously, there were — technically, four — of who you might have gone against. Lete was a big one, but was there anyone that you were hoping she would call out in that moment?

No, honestly, there’s either Cassidy [Clark] or Cara [Maria Sorbello]. There wasn’t really anybody that I would have rather had against me. I honestly don’t think I was going to win that elimination, regardless of who I was going against.

The balloon that popped up, did that throw you off your game?

Not really, honestly. It was more of a loud pop that frazzled me for a second, but I was already so frazzled that you probably could have put a million snakes in there, and I probably still would have just freaked out and just not been able to understand it. Puzzles are a hit or miss thing. You either get them, or you don’t. And in that moment, I just was not going to be able to get it. I can do tangrams. I know how to do a tangram, but in that moment, no distraction would have been able to help me out. I just think that I was so far out of the game and so checked out and pissed off and mentally just vulnerable in a place that I didn’t know that I could be at. I don’t think that there was anything getting me out of there.

Interesting because obviously that wasn’t your only elimination this season, and you were in a similar spot before. So how did you pull yourself out of that one, and what was the difference in your mindset?

I think the first one I was able to pull myself out because I saw it. I saw the puzzle. I got that second wind, and once Chris [Underwood] told me, like, “Hey, you can’t. That’s not going to fit. You don’t got that.” And once I saw it, I figured it out. I had a little bit more to keep going in me. This one was a little bit different because I genuinely was just so out of it.

The game, I wanted to continue in the game more than anything, but my reality was just so much bigger at that time. And after losing my sister to cancer and being a 17-hour flight away from my grandma, that’s going into cancer surgery, I just, I would never put blame on that because that’s not — I’m not blaming that situation at all. But I think that, mentally, I was in a place of so much fear that I just don’t think I would have been able. I would have gone into the final with so much more fear, too. So I think me getting eliminated when I did was honestly a blessing in disguise because I needed to be at home with my family when I did.

Yeah, things happen for a reason.

Exactly, they happen for a reason. There were so many lessons that I learned from getting eliminated from this season, specifically, that I’ll take those as a win because I’ll be able to use those for future seasons now.

Coming into this season, when I talked to you at the junket, you told me that, even though you had had such a strong performance of Vets & New Threats, you felt they still underestimated you a bit. How do you think that you were able to prove yourself? Can you point to any moment this season that you feel like you can point to and say, “Hey, you doubted me, but this was it?”

I think the perfect example is the “Perfect Match” challenge, where we had to do a lot of running, a lot of swimming, and then the puzzles. I was the lead person. I was the person that set the pace for us while we were running. I was the person that was told to be in the front because that was my wheelhouse. I’m an endurance kid. I love endurance things. I do high-risk races and had been training at that point for Ironman.

So the running, the swimming, and all of that stuff is just right at my wheelhouse, and I think there was one time where I didn’t swim to go get a puzzle piece, and that’s only because Izzy was begging to do something, and I was like, “Girl, go for it!.. If you want to do it, just go for it. That’s not going to stop me. It is a guy’s day, and I’m going to do everything that I can, and I’m going to swim as much as I can, I’m going to run as much as I can, I’m going to carry as much puzzle [pieces as I can].” I feel like that was a very, very good determining factor.

I think the heights over water climbing challenge [“Trial by Terror”], I was the only one in orange to make it to the fourth quadrant. I think that was a good showing that I had upper body strength. And then this final challenge that we just did right before I got eliminated — it didn’t show it in the episode, but I was also the only person to zipline and finish the entire obstacle course. And there were moments where Will [Gagnon] started off as the caboose and was very behind, but then he ended up making me be the last person because he didn’t want to be it anymore… I ended up being the caboose that helped to make sure everybody got through… I think that there were multiple times in which I showed that I was pretty good at what I was doing.

Jonne Roriz / Paramount+

Yeah, I think you showed that last season, too. When you left, were you still rooting for Team Orange, or were you kind of like, “Screw them”?

I was. I was rooting for them. As much as it was gonna suck to root for them, just that was my team, and I’m a team player. And as much as it hurt that they put me in a position to [leave], I mean, every team was going to go through it. Every team had to have somebody go through it. So there’s nobody to blame. It is the game. It’s the name. Can’t hate the player. Hate the game. It is the name of the game. So I still wanted them to win because I mean, I still want them to go and finish this. And if they win, that would be amazing because then I can say that I was the first captain of a winning team, and if they don’t win, then at least I have my girls on the other side that are doing amazing, and I can cheer for them. But ultimately, my team, my heart’s with orange, so I’m rooting for them to the end.

I’m glad you said the word cheer because obviously that’s where you got your start in reality television. Do you feel, after two seasons — going as far as you did, especially — do you feel like a Challenge-r? That’s your MO now, is a Challenge-r?

I would say so. I would say I’ve integrated my world into being a good Challenge-r. Two back-to-back deep seasons. I mean, it’s hard to it’s hard to go back for a second season, but to have two deep, deep back-to-back seasons, I think I solidified myself as a Challenge-r, and then solidified myself to be a future threat of threats in coming seasons.

The Challenge, Wednesdays, Paramount+