Andy DehnartThe winners of The Amazing Race 11, Eric Sanchez and Danielle Turner, have broken up. The dating couple was the only team to not have raced together earlier.
Eric tells Reality TV World that they “went on [All-Stars] to kind of see, you know, how our relationship would hold up, if we wanted to look into moving to either place again. Since then, Danielle and I have actually broken up … It was after the race. I mean we’re still cool, we’re good friends, it’s just as far as a relationship goes, it’s not in the cards for either of us.”
Why is that? The rest of the interview–and some press coverage–seems to offer clues, or just joke about all of the double-entendre. For example, E! concludes its story about the finale saying that “there may be some competition on the horizon” for Danielle because “Sanchez’s first call was to his former partner, Jeremy Ryan, who promised Sanchez a ‘spanking’ upon his return home.”
Asked why she did the more physical Roadblocks, Danielle tells Reality TV World, and laughs, “Because he thinks I’m a guy. My name’s Daniel not Danielle… he’s not sure.”
Eric says they ended up on the race together because he and Jeremy “were probably one of the most dominant teams in The Amazing Race history” and producers “didn’t want an alpha-male team on the [All-Stars] race because they didn’t want to risk having first places or second places throughout, which we did our first season.” Thus, producers “asked Danielle and I to do it because we met on the race and were dating.”
As to his former race partner, Eric says, “I know he’s a little upset because we did a really good job on our season and I know he wanted to be there and I just felt like he deserved it. You know, happy but sad.”
Meanwhile, Eric defends himself against accusations from Joe and Bill that he’s homophobic. Among other things, he says the following curiously qualified sentence: “I don’t know what it’s like to be a gay male 20 years ago… I have no idea.”
He says that “the problem is everything you say to them, they take it as me saying it because they’re gay. Me calling them freaks has nothing to do with sexuality, it’s because they’re freaks. They freak-out about everything. … I called them queens. They are queens. They’re older males, who are gay.”
Danielle helpfully chimes in with, “They’re gay and act like women,” and then Eric continues, saying, “I live in South Florida. I’m a waiter. I have plenty of gay friends. And you know what? They call themselves queens. … I never said anything about them being gay… I don’t care if you’re gay. It’s a personality thing. Joe and Bill, I didn’t like their personalities. It has nothing to do with them being gay, it’s a simple as that. If I don’t like you, I don’t like you. I don’t care if you’re straight, gay, blue or purple … it doesn’t matter to me.”
Amazing Finish for All-Stars [E!]