If Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio had it his way, he’d continue to compete on The Challenge as long as he can.
“I love The Challenge. I love going, I love competing,” Devenanzio, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of MTV’s The Challenge: Vets and New Threats premiere on Wednesday, July 30. “However, I just don’t have the social battery that some people do.”
“She already had an immediate connection with the U.K., with the Brits, so she was able to get in their ear very early on and convince a lot of people that I’m basically the second coming of Satan,” he told Us. “So it didn’t take long for the crosshairs to be put squarely between my eyes, which I am used to. But it is just frustrating when it happens like this early on in the game. Can we get a challenge under our belt? … Now it’s like, now I got to strap up the day I get there.”
Devenanzio has appeared on 22 seasons of the MTV competition series, managing to take home the ultimate prize an impressive seven times. As one of the greatest Challenge players, Devenanzio joked that the cash prize was one of his biggest motivating factors in his decision to keep coming back.
“They have to convince me with higher wages, obviously,” he teased. “But no, it’s more me convincing myself that I’m ready to check back in and endure all the mental anguish and physical anguish and emotional anguish that it takes to go through a season of The Challenge. It’s funny, like you think the more you do, the easier they get. It never gets easier.”
“When I was younger and I lived a more chaotic life — I can’t say I have a lot of stability in my life — but when I lived the more chaotic existence when I was younger and I didn’t necessarily need any sort of structure or routine or rhythm in my life, it didn’t really bother me,” he explained. “But when I’m home, when I’m not filming, when I’m just doing my real life thing, I have a very structured existence. So it’s difficult to then check from that, check out of that, and then go back to sleeping in a bunk bed and eating, catering and … set your mind to the extreme and being just kind of isolated from the outside world.”
Deal of the Day
When not competing on The Challenge, Devenanzio’s fitness and training are a priority as he owns a boxing studio in Florida.
