Claim to Fame 's first eliminated contestant on her exit meltdown and famous uncle
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Warning: This article contains spoilers from the season 2 premiere of Claim to Fame.
The first Claim to Fame season 2 contestant has been benched... by a bench.
Thanks to the presence of an iconic park bench on the Claim to Fame clue wall, Carly Reeves — the niece of Forrest Gump star Tom Hanks — was sent home on night one by her fellow contestant Hugo, who correctly identified her Oscar-winning celebrity relative during the season premiere guess-off.
The elimination came as quite a shock to Reeves, who made her disappointment and anger known — loudly — as she packed up her belongings. EW spoke with the actress, who has appeared in several commercials as well as videos for the Totally Studios YouTube channel, about her brief but memorable stint on Claim to Fame and what her famous uncle had to say about her foray into reality television.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: First of all, Carly, I'm with you. That bench clue was a dead giveaway!
CARLY REEVES: Thank you! I know. I mean, it's one of the greatest movies of all time. People know that bench, and then you've got the ping-pong paddle right below it. It was just too obvious.
Before you went into the house, were you trying to figure out what kind of Tom Hanks clues you might encounter?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I was prepared for a volleyball or chocolate, or any of those kinds of things. I really did have a [decoy] actor for any kind of object I thought I might get. And I was thinking about musicians, too. When I finally saw the wall, I was like, "Ohhhh… I didn't think of a bench." Like, there's really no other person a bench could be for. It was upsetting, and it was, like, dead center in the fricking middle of the board.
ABC/John Fleenor Carly Reeves on 'Claim to Fame'
For your talent, you rapped and twerked — how did you settle on that performance?
I love to sing and dance, and I'm a performer by nature. I just love a stage. I really wanted to ham it up and make people be like, "Who the heck is this person?" I mean, it's a far cry from Tom Hanks to do a rap. Then again, he has a son who raps, so there's that, too. I just really love singing and rapping and I think it's funny. I was going to try to make the audience laugh as well as like entertain them. And I thought I should have won, honestly. I was really going for a win because that was the only thing that was going to keep me in the house.
When you initially introduced yourselves, told your fellow contestants that your celebrity relative was your uncle, and that he was a musician whose biggest award was an Oscar. In retrospect, do you wish you had lied about the award rather than your celebrity relative's profession?
YES. Yes, yes, yes. I definitely thought about that way too much when I got eliminated. But even before, I wrestled with the idea of using a Tony [as the award] and trying to make him, like, a Broadway actor. I would give away actor and uncle, but his award would be a Tony. I definitely had a hard time with it because Oscar is such a dead giveaway, but if I had known that everyone else was using musician as their celebrity relative's profession… [Laughs] It felt like everyone used musician. If I had known that, I would've definitely switched it to something else. And no one else used Oscar, so it just was not working in my favor.
When you and Chris were at the clue wall, he guessed the Apollo 13 clue, the little astronaut — and you initially threw him off with that by suggesting Buzz Aldrin. But he also noticed you were "deflecting" when it came to the bench. What were you feeling in that moment when he pointed it out?
Oh my God. [Laughs] When he brought up the bench and I was trying to be like, "Yeah, but there's a tassel on it! It can't be Forrest Gump!" I was reaching for anything I could to try to make him think it wasn't that. And then I was trying too hard by being like, "Well, guess who else is in Forrest Gump? Gary Sinise!" I didn't realize at the time that I was doing it, and that it was that obvious, but yeah, I was trying too hard.
Before you came on Claim to Fame, how confident were you in your ability to lie convincingly?
Oh my God, my confidence level on a scale from one to 10 was probably at, like, a five. I just am not a good liar by nature. I hate lying, and I'm really bad at it because I just kind of giggle my way around it. But I am really good at guessing celebrities, and I'm good at games, and I'm good at puzzles, so I thought that that would be in my favor.
Well, perhaps it's a testament to your character that you're not a great liar.
I wanted to befriend everyone, too. I wanted to be nice and be as honest as I could, because I thought that would make them trust me and want to tell me information, too. My strategy was, be nice and honest, but don't bring up the Greek thing. [Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, officially became Greek citizens in 2020.] Like if brought up [being] Greek, I think that would've been also kind of a dead giveaway. I ended up actually telling one of the cast members that my tattoo is from my Bulgarian grandfather, and I'm like, "Hell, if he knows Rita's background, he might be able to put that together."
ABC/Gizelle Hernandez; Kevin Mazur/Getty Images Carly Reeves and Tom Hanks
You were clearly shocked and very upset about being eliminated. Looking back, where do you think all that emotion came from in that moment?
Yeah, I was really upset. I think I overreacted a little bit, but I'm an emotional, very dramatic person. I was really angry that I didn't get a chance to play as long as some of other contestants. I mean, there was no one to be angry at. I was just angry in general at myself, and at the fact that I was going home. And then that turned to complete despair and sadness. I even say, like, "I should get more camera time!" That's just so silly of me to say. But I also was just saying things out of my mouth.
What was your uncle's reaction when you told him you were going to be on the show?
Oh, he was excited for me. He was like, "Going on a show, that's your choice. I hope you do well. Best of luck."
Does he know that you were eliminated first?
Yeah, I told him that. I said, "Guess what your clue was?" And he goes, "What?" I said, "A bench!" He was like, "Ahhhh." At first, he didn't understand the game and then I was like, "It's clues from your movies." And then he said, "Oh, okay. Got it. Got it."
Do you think he'll watch the episode?
I hope so. I mean, maybe I don't want him to watch it because I don't want to embarrass him for any reason. I hope I don't embarrass him, but I don't think I do. So, I would love for him to watch it, because I think it's hilarious… He's happy for me no matter what. He did ask me, "Did you make some money?" And I was like, "Yeah, I made a little bit." And he said, "Ok, good." So, he was happy that I made a little money. [Laughs]
Claim to Fame airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
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