TAR in the Media

[tv echo]

The Amazing Race Slams Two Teams With a U-Turn — But Did the Setback End Their Games?
By Nick Caruso   April 2, 2025
https://tvline.com/recaps/the-amazing-race-recap-season-37-episode-5-double-uturn-1235427852/ 

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‘The Amazing Race 37’s Scott and Lori Thompson Reveal Who Hurt Them the Most in Surprise U-Turn Vote (Exclusive)
The married couple also respond to the other teams’ claims that they were playing up their age to minimize their threat level.
By Mike Bloom   April 3, 2025
https://parade.com/tv/the-amazing-race-37-scott-lori-thompson-eliminated-interview 

Amazing Race’s Scott and Lori Thompson Say Taxi Hitting a Bird Caused Them a 6-Minute Delay (Exclusive)
By Kaitlin Simpson    April 3, 2025
https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/amazing-races-scott-and-lori-had-a-delay-after-taxi-hit-a-bird/ 

Edited Friday at 02:00 PM by tv echo

[tv echo]

"The Biggest Regret of My Whole Career": Will Forte Missed Out on Doing 'The Amazing Race' With Val Kilmer
Michael Block   April 6, 2025
https://collider.com/val-kilmer-will-forte-the-amazing-race-regrets/ 

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If these two stars had their way, they would have been in the greatest race around the world. Following the recent passing of Val Kilmer, his friend and former roommate, Will Forte, paid tribute to his dear friend. In an essay penned for Vulture, Forte shared one of his deepest regrets in his career that involved the late actor, The Amazing Race. Forte wrote, "I used to watch The Amazing Race, and he came back home at some point when I was watching it and was like, 'What are you watching that garbage for? Come on, that stuff's going to rot your mind.' I said, 'It's pretty good. You should sit down and watch it. Give it a try before you s—t on it.' So he sat down, and he started watching it, and he got really into it." Kilmer's newfound passion for the long-running competition series prompted a brilliant idea.

Kilmer convinced Forte to consider teaming up for The Amazing Race, but not everyone was on board. When the pair pitched the idea to their agents, the idea was turned down. "At a certain point, he said, 'Will, you and I have to go do The Amazing Race. We have to. Let's do The Amazing Race.' I'm like, 'I am so fully in,'" Forte shared.

"We got really excited about it, and then we called our respective agents and managers, and they were like, 'There's no way you guys are doing that.' That is, maybe to this day, the biggest regret of my whole career — that I never did The Amazing Race with Val. I think we would've gotten out very quickly, but it just would've been the experience of a lifetime."

Edited Monday at 01:36 PM by tv echo

[tv echo]

Q&A: Meet the Latter-day Saint couple combatting religious stereotypes on reality TV
Scott and Lori Thompson wanted to win ‘The Amazing Race.’ They also wanted to challenge narrow views of their often misunderstood religion
By Kelsey Dallas   April 6, 2025
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2025/04/06/mormon-amazing-race-scott-lori/ 

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Deseret News: Why did you apply for the show?

Lori Thompson: We love “The Amazing Race.” We love a lot of reality shows, like “Big Brother” and “Survivor.”

I’ve actually auditioned for “Survivor” the last six years and kind of gone through that process a little ways. For 15 years, I was pregnant or nursing and couldn’t apply to any of those shows, so I was excited to start applying.

We thought I would get on “Survivor” and that it would be our hook to get on “The Amazing Race,” but we decided to apply directly and made a video the same day. A month later, we got a call from one of our casting producers and here we are.

DN: What was your pitch to producers? How did you present yourself to the show?

Lori: Our hook was our eight sons, but we also have great banter, like how we can tell a story and interrupt each other, like “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you told them that.”

We just kind of went off the cuff (in the audition video). Scott told some stories — including ones I was kind of embarrassed about — and it made it authentic and unique and more fun.
*  *  *
DN: How did you want to be seen by fans of “The Amazing Race”?

Lori: Two different things were incredibly important to me.

First, as an older mom, I wanted to remind other moms that they’re not just moms. They’re so much more than that. They’re powerful and amazing.

You don’t live your life just because you’re a mom. You live your life because you’re a unique human being.

I really wanted to make sure that I made it clear that even 50-year-old women could do these crazy challenges and travel across the world. We can do hard things and sometimes we fail and sometimes we prevail but we can do it.

The second thing is I really wanted to let people know that we are a fun, amazing, kind couple that is members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A lot of times we are discounted, like “Oh they’re Mormon, we don’t want anything to do with that.” We’ve seen quite a bit of that with reality TV in the past.

Scott: We went in and had the intentionality of wanting to depict ourselves as in Paul’s letter to Timothy where he said, “Be an example of the believers.” We just wanted to be examples of what we thought believers look like, which is authentic to who we are every day of our lives anyways.

So often, we got the response from other racers and production people, “You’re not what we thought Utah Mormons would be like,” and we appreciated that.

Lori: It was a compliment.

Scott: That meant we were fracturing a little bit of a stereotype others had in their minds, and we were accomplishing the goal we were going in with, which was showing them an example of believers.

Lori: There was a moment in the very first episode — Carson and Jack, who are best friends and who are gay, they were doing some sort of voguing in the airport and Scott started singing “Cover Girl” from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

Let’s face it, most typical LDS members aren’t into “Drag Race.” That broke barriers down, and we ended up being really, really close to them.

Edited Monday at 01:52 PM by tv echo