Ben Driebergen and Enzo Palumbo Break Down Their Unconventional Exits on 'The Challenge: USA'

The 'Survivor' and 'Big Brother' alums get into Ben's difficulties navigating his relationship with Sarah, and Enzo's strategy for surviving eliminations.

The Challenge: USA is here! Every week, Parade.com will speak with the CBS reality alumni who were eliminated from the all-star competition.

It's understandable why Ben Driebergen and Enzo Palumbo got along so well. Both are older men constantly playing for their families. Both have made the finale of every reality show they've been a part of. And in The Challenge: USA, that led to a close and common bond between them, though "Benzo" certainly had its dramatic moments. So it's only fittingly that these two men end their journey on the show in a similar fashion, leaving the finals right before and after it started.

For the first half of the season, Ben was putting in a series of solid performances. But they weren't enough to outspeed some of his competitors, specifically fellow Survivor winner Tyson Apostol. But surprisingly the most stress for Ben came from one of his closest allies in Sarah Lacina. Despite being thick as thieves starting the game, Ben began to rack up daily wins and sought other pastures. Specifically, he helped create an alliance of the Survivor men and Big Brother women that went on to dominate the endgame, actively keeping Sarah's enemies in the game. Unfortunately for Ben, it all came literally crashing down during the final daily challenge. A nasty shoulder injury made him medically unclear to run the final, sending him off after a private jet ride through the mountains.

While Ben's success was in dailies, Enzo found his in eliminations. Given his nickname, the Meow Meow was understandably bad in the water, something that made him an anchor of a partner a number of times. But when day turned to night, that's when Enzo found his forte. He went into elimination three times and claimed victory every time, the most of anyone this season. But just when he thought he had enough momentum to spring to the finish, his Achilles heel popped up once more. The final began with a swim to shore that left Enzo panicking in the water. He elected to drop out, not only flushing his bank account, but also unfortunately eliminating his partner Desi Williams in the process.

The day after the finale, Parade.com speaks with Ben and Enzo about how they both left the game, how Ben's relationship with Sarah strained his game, and how Enzo was able to constantly win eliminations.

Related: Meet the Cast of The Challenge: USA

Considering I'm talking with both members of "Benzo," I have to ask: Is the bromance still alive?
Enzo Palumbo: I love Ben. Ben's a good guy, man. Benzo was flying high. The bald eagles! I know Ben's a good guy, man. I grew to love him in that house. And I still do now. And we always keep in touch through Instagram or text or whatever.
Ben Driebergen: Yeah, it was fun having Enzo. It's been fun doing these interviews with him. He is a hilarious guy and just a good guy to be around. He's a funny guy and we related on that level of being dads. So it was neat. It was fun.

So we naturally need to start with how you both left the game. Ben, what exactly happened with your shoulder to not medically clear you for the final? And how is your shoulder now?
Ben: It's okay! I've had a couple surgeries done. And also my knee had surgery as well. But I'm feeling good, just trying to get things back to normal. So I obviously knew I was hurt. And I was lying to myself and lying to them. And they had all the actual information through X-rays and stuff like that. So I was holding on to every glimmer of hope that I could complete it. But when TJ finally said that I was out, that's when I really believed it.

It was a bummer because I was gonna go tear that thing up a lot more than I probably should have. But in the end, I have a screw in there now with a bunch of stuff. So they made the right call and ended up protecting me from myself. So it's all thanks to them, and I'm just a big dummy that wanted to go play in the mountains. So it was it was neat that they were there looking out out for me.

On the other side, we have Enzo. Talk me through your process as you eventually decide to quit during the swimming task.
Enzo: It accumulated as it went on. I just started hating the water, man. And I always liked the water! But being on The Challenge, I started hating it. And it's just long-distance swimming for me. I hate it. Being thrown in that water, I was already in my head. It's choppy; it's cold. I don't even want to be here. What are we doing? And my mindset was wrong. I was trying to be like, "Yo, you're in the finals. You got to suck it up. You got to partner too that you gotta carry with you to the end of the shore."

So I kept looking up at the end at the finish line. And I felt I was going backwards. It just kept getting farther and farther. And then that's when the panic starts to send me. A whole bunch of things hit me at once. I was weak. And I started to crack, and that was it, man. I didn't watch yesterday's episode. There's no way I was watching that. But I broke Desi's heart. I apologized to her. I'll keep apologizing to her. It wasn't right, man. It was brutal. It was brutal to do that to her.

Have the two of you been able to hash it out since your time in Argentina?
Enzo: I wouldn't say hash it out. But we became friends on Instagram. And then I sent through a big apology on that too, when I already apologized in Argentina. But I know she's gonna always have a little bit of animosity towards me. And I understand that, deservedly so. I deserve everything she feels towards me. And she's an awesome girl. I love her. She's a beast, and she probably could have won if it wasn't for me. And I've got to always live with that burden. I think about it every day; it bothers me a lot.

Ben, you were not shy about your frustration in constantly finishing behind Tyson. And it's something that caused a rift between you. Talk about why you seemed to have such charged emotions.
Ben: I mean, Tyson is a great competitor. You've seen it on the show. He and Angela actually set the tone of the game and got to narrate the game and how it's played with strong competitors. And you see them pull Kyland and anybody who wins at that point, which is a great move on both of their parts. But for me, it had nothing to do with Tyson winning. In fact, it was helping my game! We were Survivor strong at that point.

But for me, I just don't like losing. I go into every challenge, every competition, expecting to win. I don't want to go in there and get second place. I'm not trying to compete for the middle ground. I want to go in there and win a challenge myself against Danny, who's an NFL player, and Kyland, who's a 27-year-old beast. I'm almost 40 years old. I like to test myself from a background. And I've always tested myself and being able to go on these shows and compete against all these great people from all these different backgrounds and experiences is what I really enjoy.

We saw how close you and Sarah became in Survivor: Winners at War. But you did not see eye-to-eye by the end of the season, especially when it came to alliances. In my interview with Sarah, she said that if you weren't there, she would have played a very different game. What do you make of that?
Ben: The thing is, is you go in there with these past connections. And we saw how much these past connections actually hinders people's movement in the game. From Big Brother strong to Love Island strong. With Cinco and Cash, and then Kyra and Cashel. All these different backgrounds actually ended up hurting you in the game. And Sarah and I, whether we admit it or not, identified that at some point that we weren't going to be able to continue in this game if we kept being with each other.

So that's where the distance started to come from. We had to play our own game. We couldn't play a partner game, because that's just too much of a threat and you're relying on someone else, and you can only rely on yourself in the end. You have a chance to go down there into elimination and prove yourself, and Enzo did it three different times. So under the pressure, it just became an individual game separate from the alliances you build throughout the game.

By comparison, Enzo, we didn't see a lot of the Big Brother dynamics. We know that you and David became close on the season. And you certainly weren't happy with Angela sending David in against you. What was your relationship like with all of them?
Enzo: I was really close with Alyssa right from the bat, because I know she was a fan of mine from what I've seen on Big Brother. So I was like, "Alright, I think I have her." But I did worry a little because I was like, "Yo, they all played together on season 23. Are they going to stick together? What's going on with that there?" So I'm on the outs of that. With Dave I was a little bit on the outs too, because I voted him out on BB All-Stars. And then we built a really great relationship.

With Angela, I could tell she's an ice queen. I could tell the vibe wasn't there. Plus, I played on All-Stars with her boyfriend in Tyler. I love Tyler, but it became me and Cody against Tyle. So I think she probably remembered that too. So whenever she had a chance, I think she was going to take it, and she did at the end. I just hated it. I would've went up against anyone else. I didn't care. I just didn't want it to be Dave. But I understand the move. It is what it is, and if Dave would have won, I would have shook. But yeah, I was tight with a lot of BB people. I liked Xavier a lot too; he went too soon. But like I said, they had their thing, and they were going after each other but cannibalizing each other. So I was like, "I'm staying out of this one."

Ben, you always seem to go on a journey in every season that you participate on. What was your journey this season?
Ben: I absolutely loved it! It was a great experience. I got to knock Argentina off the old bucket list, anging off the side of a truck like Spider-Man. I got to meet some pretty cool people and get to know them. It was a great experience.

We saw a number of times other contestants regard you as a lesser competitor. But time and time again, you were able to prove them wrong in eliminations. How do you look back on what you were able to show about yourself?
Enzo: In these type of shows, you can't show weakness. I showed weakness on the rope challenge there when I didn't do the jump. So right then and there, the girls don't want to be partenered me because I just showed weakness. They're seeing, "He's scared to do this. He's scared of the water stuff." So that was a burden for me as I went on. But my scrappiness helped me when I went into eliminations. I did what I had to do.

Like I said, I felt more comfortable in the eliminations. It's kind of weird and twisted but it felt awesome to be there. I used every ounce of my ability, and it got me to the finals, and I'm proud of that. I hate the way it ended. But I'm a human being; I've got flaws and I've got to work on some things. But I've apologized to Desi. I've apologized to people out there who thought I had a chance. And I thought so too. But just at the end, I fell flat, man.

Next, read our interview with Desi Williams and Alyssa Lopez, who were also eliminated in the finale of The Challenge: USA.