Random Reality – Josh Clinton Interviews The Amazing Race 12's Kynt Cothron and Vyxsin Fiala

Features, Interviews, Shows

The seventh team to get eliminated from The Amazing Race 12 this past week is one of the most unusual teams to ever appear on the show, Kynt Cothron and Vysin Fiala. They are a goth couple, but don’t let their looks fool you. They are two of the nicest people you would ever want to meet. I had the chance to talk to them both what it’s like dealing with the common stereotypes of being goths and about their experiences on the show including why they didn’t use the “U-Turn” on Nate and Jen? Here is what they had to say…


Josh Clinton: Hey guys.

Kynt Cothron: Hi Josh.

Vyxsin Fiala: Hi.

JC: How’s it going?

KC: We’re doing great.

JC: Great. So were you fans of The Amazing Race before you got on the show?

KC: Oh yeah, big fans. We loved it.

JC: Cool. What were the reasons you wanted to do the race with each other?

KC: I mean what an opportunity to tackle a challenge at this magnitude in The Amazing Race and not do so alone, but to get to trot around the globe literally with your very best friend in life. There’s not many opportunities to do something so exciting and we’ve always been fans of the show. I mean it’s only one of the few programs on TV that can hold our ADD attention spans. (Laughs).

VF: (Laughs).

JC: (Laughs).

KC: It’s like a real life action-adventure movie.

JC: Right, exactly. As far as your appearance on the show went, do you think you represented the goth lifestyle well?

KC: I would hope that we did. (Laughs). One of our missions going into The Amazing Race was to show people that goths aren’t depressed socially-inept basement dwellers. We wanted to show that this culture is insightful and artistic and just plain fun.

JC: Yeah. What is it like dealing with the stereotypes you have to deal with on a daily basis?

KC: It can be rough sometimes. People have preconceived notions and they judge people before they get to know them. But once you expose people to something that is different they are usually aren’t as afraid or as concerned.

VF: Yeah, obviously it’s not fun to be on the receiving end of some negative stereotypes, but at the same time I can’t say they we aren’t into that. Kynt and I have looked colorful and unusual for some time now. We pretty much do what we do because it’s an expression of who we are and what we like. It’s really not in reaction to anyone else or really for anyone else. So we’re pretty good at turning the other cheek when people have a negative attitude towards us. It’s not really about them, it’s more about us. We’re pretty strong and we don’t really let people change us if they don’t appreciate something or have some negative thing to say. We just sort of smile and do our own thing.

KC: For the most part people are positive. Sometimes you have to show a different side of things that they haven’t seen before. We give everyone a chance.

VF: Absolutely.

JC: Right. When Jen made the comment about you using your “witch-like powers”, is that one of the stereotypes that you have to deal with all the time?

KC: Well that comment just made us giggle. It kinda made us laugh. We have a good sense of humor about ourselves and the whole goth thing. So comments like that just make us laugh. On the show, we showed that we kinda make fun of ourselves as well. We like to poke fun at ourselves, because it’s fun. We’re not all uptight about who we are.

JC: Yeah. So how much time did you have to spend on your respective appearances during each rest period?

KC: Well we obviously messed with the biggest concern, when you get to each pit stop, getting your sleep. But we’re so used to getting ourselves made up each day, it was anything out of the ordinary for us. We gave ourselves 20 minutes, 30 minutes to get dressed up and do our makeup. We have gotten pretty quick at it.

JC: Yeah. Would have preferred that the non-elimination twist to be the “speedbump” like it was this season or to have all of your money taken away like it was in previous seasons?

VF: Yeah, we would have hated to have all of our money and stuff taken from us, because it would have meant that we would have had no makeup to use. That would have been terrible.

KC: We’re very glad that Phil didn’t mug us.

VF: Yeah, we much preferred the “speedbump”.

JC: Yeah, I never thought of it like that. That makes sense. How long did it take to do the yoga speedbump?

KC: It took a little while. One thing you have to consider, besides the yoga challenge itself, was the fact that we lost the traveling both to and from the challenge. When we got to the “speedbump” sign, it directed us to another destination to do the yoga challenge. So we lost the time going to the challenge and leaving it.

JC: Yeah. Kynt, did you intentionally leave the elevator door open to prevent Jen from taking it?

KC: No, I hadn’t even actually thought about it. When I got off the elevator I went ahead and delivered the receipts to the person, then I heard Jen yelling “close the door! close the door!” At that point I realized that was preventing her from going up. I mean I wasn’t in any hurry to go over there and close the door, though. (Laughs).

VF: (Laughs).

JC: Right. Why didn’t you decide to use the U-Turn on Nate and Jen since you knew they were behind you and they were a much stronger team than Nick and Don?

KC: Well we didn’t know they were behind us. That’s the thing. From our perspective, they passed us. We arrived at the flower-making challenge, they were already ahead of us. And they finished the challenge a good time minutes before we did. Still to this day, I don’t know how they got behind us. Even Nate and Jen are in shock. They were like “how are Kynt and Vyxsin ahead of us?” As a viewer you get a very privileged view. You get to see where all the teams are, how close they are to one another, who is ahead of who, who is behind who, but from our vantage point they finished that flower challenge and left. Why would we U-Turn a team that we saw got ahead of us? Little did we know that they had some sort of taxi difficulty and that they got behind. But from our limited information, we saw them passing us.

VF: We didn’t know they were behind us until we got to the roadblocks, and saw them coming up. That’s the moment that we realized that they were behind us the whole time. That was the moment where we said “Oh no! We picked the wrong team!” Of course at that point, it’s obviously too late to do anything about it.

KC: Yeah, obviously if we had known for sure that any one team was behind us, we would have “U-Turned” them.

VF: Absolutely.

JC: Right. That makes sense then. Are you surprised that Nick and Don have made it this far in the race?

KC: No, it doesn’t surprise me. It’s been a competitive group of people. Every team has had their strengths and they are all rocking it out.

JC: Yeah. Was there a team that you got along with best on the race?

VF: I think we got along pretty well with all the teams honestly. Kynt and I kept to ourselves quite a bit, but we did work with some teams at different points to do small challenges and things like that. But overall we were kinda like a little island to ourselves most of the time. We didn’t have any personal conflict or special dislike for anyone, though.

KC: We just tried to focus on getting our tasks finished and focus our energy on ourselves as opposed to getting in conflict with other people. We try to get along with everybody.

JC: Yeah. Did you have a favorite part of the race?

KC: My personal favorite moment was the arrival at that magical village in Lithuania. People were all dressed up as dwarves and elves and hobgoblins. That part was great. It felt very much like Halloween or a Sci-Fi convention. All the types of things that we go to, and we just loved it. It hypnotized us and mesmerized us. We started playing with all the little creatures and one of them offered us biscuits and tea. I was like “come on Vxysin, lets have a biscuit and some tea!” (Laughs).

VF: (Laughs).

KC: We kinda stopped racing for a minute until we both realized “Whoa!…”

VF: “…What are we doing?”

KC: “Lets get back to racing!” That moment was wonderful.

JC: Do you agree with that Vyxsin? Was that a favorite part of the race for you?

VF: Oh yeah, that was so much fun. It was so imaginative and magical. It was great.

JC: Right, very cool. Did either of you learn something about your partner that you didn’t know before this race?

VF: I was just so proud of Kynt and the way that he really stepped up to all of the physical challenges in the race. He’s not the most rugged, outdoorsy kind of guy, physically. He was so strong and fast, and was wonderful the entire way. He had so much stamina and had a great attitude about everything. He was really competitive and supportive and strong. I was so impressed with that.

JC: Cool. What about your Kynt? Anything you learned about Vyxsin that you maybe didn’t know before this race?

KC: Vyxsin, the girl is unstoppable. Seeing her tackle all of these adventures and repel down walls, she never freaks. She never hesitated. She’s stronger than I ever thought.

JC: Alright, very cool. That is all I have for you, but thanks for your time and good luck with everything.

VF: Thank you so much and Happy New Year!

KC: Yes, thank you and we look forward to reading your interview on Inside Pulse.


The Amazing Race airs on CBS in the U.S. on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

The Amazing Race airs on the CTV network in Canada on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

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