Johnny 'Bananas' Devenanzio Reveals Who Slid into His DMs Before 'The Challenge: USA' Season 2 (Exclusive)

The reality star also tells PEOPLE why he thinks 'The Challenge: USA' season 1 "was an experiment gone horribly awry"

The Challenge legend Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio will make his primetime network TV debut when The Challenge: USA season 2 premieres Thursday night on CBS.

“I don't know if network television is ready for Johnny Bananas, but here we go," Devenanzio, 41, exclusively tells PEOPLE.

When CBS introduced The Challenge: USA last summer, veterans of the MTV version of the show didn’t receive an invite.

“It would be like going to an *NSYNC concert and Justin Timberlake not being there. You don't go to see the rest of them,” Devenanzio says. “Can you name one other person from *NSYNC? I can't.”

Related: Paulie Calafiore, Cory Wharton, Johnny 'Bananas' and More Return for 'The Challenge: USA' Season 2

Devenanzio thinks that featuring only stars from The Amazing Race, Big Brother, Love Island and Survivor on season 1 didn’t work because The Challenge fans want to see the competitors they know and love (or love to hate).

“What makes The Challenge unique is the fact that they bring back cast members season after season,” he says. “You get an influx of new people, but you have your mainstays and that's what a large majority of our fan base wants to see. You can't just plug in a whole bunch of new people, slap The Challenge logo on it, put it on another network and expect the true fandom to follow along. I think it was an experiment gone horribly awry.”

But Devenanzio leapt at the chance to partake this time around alongside fellow vets Wes Bergmann, Tori Deal, Amanda Garcia, Jonna (Mannion) Stephens and Cory Wharton.

“I was like, ‘Of course this makes sense,’” Devenanzio says of including the MTV Challengers this year. “Once they came a calling, I'm like, ‘Dude, so you're going to let me out of the cage? Are you sure you're ready for this CBS?’ I don't know.”

Related: Wes Bergmann Was Hoping 'The Challenge: All Stars' Season 3 Would Be 'a Vacation ... I Was Wrong'

Devenanzio jokes that the CBS cast members and MTV cast members “is almost like the public school kids compared to the private school kids.”

“MTV, we're a little more rough-and-tumble, a little more rough around the edges, spend a little more time in the principal's office, probably getting suspended for bad behavior,” he continues.
“Private school kids, silver spoon. They just kind of have a different way of moving about, and they have a different sense of maturity and decorum.”

Devenanzio came off The Challenge: World Championship on Paramount+, where he didn’t make it to the final after losing an elimination to Jordan Wiseley. The Real World: Key West alum says he didn’t think he “was in the right mind space” going into World Championship.

“The most important thing is you have to show up ready and willing to play the game. And I just had no desire to play,” he continues. “I'm like, I'm here, but it's like I don't want to get to know anybody. I don't want to form alliances. I just want to be. And you can't do that because then what ends up happening is things form around you and you get screwed.”

Related: Johnny 'Bananas' Devenanzio Knows He Is 'Public Enemy No. 1' on Every Season of 'The Challenge'

But going into USA season 2, “I was in a much better head space,” says Devenanzio, who will be opening a Rumble Boxing studio in Boca Raton, Florida, this year. “This was a whole different ball of wax. This is something that even me and all the seasons that I've done and all the years I've competed on the show, this was even something different because you were entering a game where, for the first time in a long time, we were outnumbered.”

Devenanzio calls being one of a small number of Challenge vets a “a baptism by fire” and says he had to try and make sure his reputation didn’t proceed him.

“It was truly a huge test to figure out how to adjust and adapt and ingratiate yourself into this game, into this format, and try and convince these people that I'm not who they think I am — maybe try and pull the wool over their eyes a little bit,” the seven-time Challenge winner says. “It didn't really work out for me in the beginning, but it was fun.”

Devenanzio concedes that Big Brother alums Paulie Calafiore, Josh Martinez and Faysal Shafaat and Survivor’s Michele Fitzgerald, who have all competed on the MTV Challenge, had an advantage going into USA season 2.

“They were in a very unique position where they were able to almost shape-shift and maneuver into both worlds because it's almost like they have all the BB connections, Survivor connections, but then also they have the connections with the MTV contingency as well,” Devenanzio says. “I just had to rely on what they were telling me because Lord knows none of the Big Brother, Survivor people were telling me s---. It was definitely very unfamiliar territory for me, because usually I've got a read on everything that's going on.”

Related: 'The Challenge: War of the Worlds' ' Paulie Calafiore Opens Up About That Painful Performance

The seven-time Challenge champ admits he wasn't happy to see Calafiore, 34, return this season. “Coming into this season, Paulie and I hated each other,” Devenanzio says.

And even though Devenanzio and Bergmann, 39, have buried their hatchet, Bergmann’s connections to Calafiore made Devenanzio wary. “I know [Paulie] and Wes were close, so I just don't know what type of information Wes is going to try and use as currency,” the Death, Taxes, and Bananas podcast host says. “Even though we're on good terms now, make no mistake, this guy will still do anything he can to, if not take a shot at me directly, find a backdoor way to do it.”

Bergmann’s been known to try to form alliances ahead of filming by reaching out to other castmates. But Devenanzio says he only slides into DMs “for other purposes.”

“The only person this season that DMed me was Dusty, and I've never even met this guy before,” Devenanzio says of The Amazing’s Race’s Dusty Harris. “He's like, "Hey man, I'm going on the next Challenge. I'm on Amazing Race." I don't know who this guy is from a hole in the wall, so I'm not going to tell him I'm going or I know anything about the show.”

Devenanzio feels the Amazing Race, Big Brother and Survivor vets faced a “a very steep learning curve” when it came to learning how The Challenge works.

“Especially on Big Brother with the live feeds, they're on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so they are constantly concerned about what's coming out of their mouth or how they're acting or the way it's going to be portrayed. And in this day and age, man, you say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, it could be bad,” Devenanzio acknowledges. “They are sitting there being like, ‘Dude, you're cracking some crazy jokes and you're acting a certain way.’ The Challenge isn't that. You can be yourself and let your freak flag fly and not worry about that potentially being a de-platformable offense. Only the relevant stuff is going to make it.”

Related: 'The Challenge: World Championships' Sees 4 Players Go Home in 1 Week — and 1 of Them Is Pregnant!

But even after 25 seasons, sometimes the outrageous daily challenges still surprise Devenanzio.

“It never ceases to amaze me what they come up with,” he says. “I am never a big fan of being dangled off a 60-story building, never going to get over it. Eating challenges, I'm not a big fan of those. But I'd have to say probably the thing I look forward to the least on The Challenge is waking up and looking at Wes every morning.”

Devenanzio teases he may consider pivoting to appearing on a dating show, specifically ABC’s Bachelor in Paradise, because he may have reconnected with BiP alum Genevieve Parisi.

“Genevieve and I have had an ongoing relationship here for quite some time, so recently may or may not have been rekindled,” he says. “Stay tuned for the Banachelor. Johnny Bananas coming to a Paradise Island near you?”

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The Challenge: USA season 2 premieres Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.

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